The Guardian
by Gnash1
Summary: Picks up where A SireBound leaves off from Elijah's POV. Elijah and (OC) Harper have a turbulent history and a turbulent future, all things considered... Threads of Delena.
1. Chapter 1

**_As always, I own no part of the characters from TVD and am not affiliated with the program, its writers or producers. This fanfic is the product of my imagination and distributed for entertainment only._**

**_I do however retain full right to any original character contained in this story. I have given no right to those characters to any party or entity by their being published here._**

**The Guardian, Part 1**

**Chapter 1**

With yet another of his personal rules lying in ruins at his feet, Elijah grimaced at himself.

He sat in the soft leather chair in Harper's den, turning off his cell phone. The fire popped and cracked in the fireplace, burning high, warming him and the room. He kept the fire stoked in the natural stone fireplace when he was here during the colder months. He knew perfectly well that Harper was more than capable, but he liked the idea of keeping her warm. It made him feel he was providing for her somehow.

Harper was the picture of capable, really. Her soft black hair hung to her shoulders, framing lovely warm brown skin and almond shaped black eyes. She was a tiny woman with monumental strength. The word applied to more than just physical, or even magical strength. He had seen Harper survive and thrive where others would've crumbled. She had a deep abiding sort of might that grown men envied. All of that combined with an abiding gentleness in every word, expression and action made her the picture of contrasts. She often left him completely baffled, something that both annoyed and fascinated him.

A small hand came to his shoulder. She leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head from behind as she whispered, "You don't like for anyone to know it, but you have a good heart."

"That will be our secret, little witch." He whispered back at her, smiling a little. "And I remember a day when you wouldn't have believed it yourself."

She laughed, hushing him with a kiss on his cheek. Her lips were smooth and warm, a comfort he often traveled miles for, and would do so again any day.

He shrugged lightly when she sat on the arm of the chair, studying him. He answered the question in her eyes. "Those two have danced around one another long enough. I know Damon and Elena well enough to know they will do that forever if _someone_ doesn't stop it."

Laughter thick in her voice she said, "So you just interfered?"

His spine straightened a bit at her words. Making an effort to keep a straight face, he said "No." Supplying the answer she was looking for as if it was nothing at all to him, he said with a shrug, "I just asked Damon to check on his neighbor."

Harper roared with laughter, the warm sound reaching every surface and corner of the vaulted ceiling. The small woman had a way of filling a room with her warmth. Eyes dancing, she said, "You. Are. Wicked." They both knew that Elena was living in the neighboring cabin, a mile west of Damon. Damon was the only one not aware of that.

Elijah grinned back and then remembered his dignity, schooling his features into firm denial. "I. Am. Concerned." He answered, mimicking her tone. He made an effort to sound as serious as he could in the face of her teasing. "There's a young woman up there that might not know a snowstorm is coming."

Harper laughed harder, shaking her head, standing to move away. "It's times like this that I remember why I love you."

He stood, moving very swiftly and wrapped his arms firmly around her, enjoying her softness and the sighing sound she made against him. "I don't plan to give you the chance to forget." She tipped her face up expectantly and he obliged her, lowering his mouth gently to hers. It brought an ache to remember when this closeness would've been impossible, so he had learned to savor her. _If he was honest, it should be impossible now. _

Every stolen moment with her was a risk, but he kept coming anyway. Like a deer to the brook, thirsty for life giving water, he came to her door time and again. His selfishness would catch up with him one day. Just not today. _Please, let it not be today._

For most of her life he had been coming, in one way or another, to her door. He had been there the night she was born, hearing her soft cries from the next room and seeing her father's pride. Elijah always tried to be present for births into their family. Hers had seemed insignificant at the time. He had not looked at that small, red and wrinkled face and known that this one person would become a hinge in his life.

Elijah firmly believed that each lifetime was held together like a ladder with many hinges, each crucial point hung in the balance of a single moment, an opportunity as a door swung wide, or an unfamiliar path traveled. With his unnaturally long life, he had seen a handful of those times when everything changed. He had not known though, until her quiet gentleness invaded his life, that a single person could make all things new. Harper herself had become a pivot point for him. When he thought of how he had nearly never been given that chance, he shuddered at the memory.

Harper moved away in his arms, tipping her face up, dark eyes smiling to ask, "Someone walk over your grave?" He only smiled, unable to answer her. He shook his head, squeezed her arm lightly before he wandered quietly to the window, watching the snow as it began to fall in earnest. Harper joined him at the window for a moment, hugged him from behind, pressing her face to his broad back quickly before she moved away to some task. She was forever moving, that little woman.

His eyes on the whitening landscape, he thought of how silent the world became when snow fell. It seemed the entire world went to a hushed wonder with even the wildlife was left in awe of the beauty of the small white flakes becoming a blanket for the whole world. Until Harper, winter had always been cold and lonely to him. He remembered only too well how it felt to be on the outside of warmth and welcome.

He did not let himself forget that night, or the time that followed. He kept it at the forefront of his mind so that he would appreciate what he might've lost. Wise men didn't push pain away and forget, they learned. Elijah liked to think of himself as wise, after all this time. He focused on how it had felt, being that man looking in.

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Snow had been falling that night. Elijah had been caught in some scheme of his brother's, thirty years ago, and been gone from Harper for more than six months. At his return, he found even the landscape changed.

Elijah always came on foot to her home, having little patience with cars in general. He could move faster than any car could, anyway. He was also less noticed this way, and he always liked to surprise little Harper. But two miles onto her land, entirely by accident, he found a ward. It was a warning spell, charmed to repel. Elijah struck the barrier and was sent flying back, blue sparks spewing back at him, upwards and momentarily lighting the sky with their explosion. He saw then what he had not before in the light of the scattering sparks. It was a dome, a protection spell…._against him?_ These spells were set to go off only when an intruder approached. He recognized the electric blue pulsing color as Harper's signature; it had run in her family for generations. Elijah's eyes narrowed in confused frustration as his teeth met and ground together with an angry rumble.

The last time he had seen her, she had been the sweet natured young woman he had become so accustomed to. She had a quiet eagerness to please and seemed to enjoy their time together. Those visits had begun when she was only eight years old and been as frequent as he could escape the rigors of his everyday life. She had fast become the only human in centuries that he had formed an honest friendship with. He carried the image of her in his mind, like a talisman against what he faced when he left her. She had no parents or family, so for all intents and purposes he had become her guardian. She even seemed to crave his approval, somehow. _But now she armed herself against him? _

Something hot and restless unfolded in him, burning a path up into his chest. He knew these wards. He had seen them used before. Elijah was perfectly aware that an alarm had already rung inside and Harper would now be aware of his presence. He waited for a moment while the heat of his anger burned a little hotter with each breath. His eyes had narrowed to slits, his mouth a thin white line by the time he realized that the ward was not going to lower. _There was no mistake._ He took a few steps back and gathered momentum, lowered his and he struck the barrier hard, watching the magic shatter to blue glass all around him, echoing a tinkling sound as it crumbled over the hushed falling snow.

_He would have a damned explanation._

After the ward shattered, his approach was fast and uneventful. He approached her home at the center of the two hundred acre plot nestled in the wilds of Utah. The place was a serviceable farm and a house with a broad, wrap around porch and smoke billowing from the chimney into the cold night sky. All of this was expected. Her standing on the porch in a terry cloth robe and boots, looking rumpled from sleep with a large man standing in the doorway behind her was not expected.

Seeing the other man, Elijah's body locked midstride. Harper had someone here with her. A man. He swallowed, his gut clenching tightly, a single fist closing as the burning in his chest sparked and erupted into a roaring fire. He had never considered such a thing. The stranger had dark chocolate brown skin, was bald and stood a head and a half taller than Harper, filling up the doorway behind her with his body. He looked equally rumpled as if the two of them had been asleep and interrupted. Elijah's face grew expressionless and cold as he continued moving toward them, each step crunching purposefully in the falling snow. Harper's dark eyes were narrowed and her mouth set. She held what appeared to be a crossbow, arrow nocked. Elijah came to ten feet from the steps to her porch when she centered the bow on his chest.

"Don't come any further." Her voice was hard, angry. He noticed she moved the weapon with practiced grace and her hands showed no signs of tremor. She was accustomed to using it. _When had Harper become practiced with weapons? He had never taught her that…._

"I don't understand, Harper." He raised his hands in silent surrender, keeping his tone calm. To test her resolve, he silently dared her, taking another step. With an echoing thwack in the cold night, an arrow sank into the snow two inches from his left foot. He watched the blue dust scatter over the frozen ground. The arrows were charmed, too. He froze, as she seemed to insist on it, his hands wide at his sides and empty.

She raised her voice. It came out creaky and strangely deep. "I didn't have to miss…."

"I believe you." He answered quietly across the snow, holding his ground. "What's happened here, Harper?"

"You aren't…." Her voice cracked, sounding dry and pained. She drew a breath, and Elijah watched as the man behind her put a steadying hand on her shoulder. She seemed to draw strength from the broad stranger. Elijah's eyes narrowed a little more, watching them. A torrent of fury rushed up to choke him. This stranger touching Harper would learn regret. Elijah was already contemplating the man's painful lesson when Harper found her voice and went on. "You and your kind aren't welcome here."

Elijah's breath seized in his chest. _ His kind. _They had never discussed what he was. It had never seemed necessary. But she spat the words at him now, a challenge and an accusation in one. A throbbing need to be understood, forgiven for what he was drove him forward another step toward her without his permission. Another arrow sank into the ground, butted up against the end of his shoe.

Her voice low and hard, she said, "I won't miss again, Elijah. I'm not playing here." The words dropped like stones into a deep well, undoing the peace and silence that Elijah had always found here. His shoulders came up, at her warning. Anger and pain warred within him.

She was a quiet refuge for him. Her home, her company….these things had been the place he went when the rest of the world would weigh him down to the ground with responsibility. She was a safe place, a harbor of peace for him. Now she would kill him if she could. With her own hands. The pain won the war, ripping away at him from the inside out. Pride would keep his head high, his voice steady, but he bled internally and watched the ensuing flood rise up to choke out all he had hoped for.

"Alright. I will go…..for now. But I will be back, Harper. And I'll have an explanation." Elijah backed away slowly, eyes still on her lovely, but hard and unyielding face.

He watched her turn into the opened arms of the stranger with her and had to force himself not to snatch her away, separating them. He would've liked to break the large arms that held her, shattering bone and feeling the crunch under his hands. Her face tucked into the other man's chest, the stranger finally spoke, his eyes meeting Elijah's for the first time across the distance. His voice was loud and very deep as he called out to him. "Next time, she'll loose the hounds on you." The man's dark eyes glowed with a bright orange fiery band. A werewolf. _Damn._ More complications.

_Author's note:_

_ This story is a sequel to A SireBound. I found Elijah and Harper's story too interesting to be able to just walk away. The details keep seeping in when I should have my focus on other things. So I've committed to putting the details here as they come. _

_ I'm in the process of revisions to my first novel and halfway through my second. (Both, as yet, unpublished, but I hold stubbornly to the idea that this state of affairs is only temporary.) I'm telling you this because the updates for this story may be longer than usual. It will depend on how insistent Elijah is in telling me what happened between him and Harper. The louder he is, the more I will have to work at writing it to get it out of my head. Otherwise, his deep voice will haunt me. Fortunately he's not nearly as brash or loud mouthed as Damon, who would've had me updating twice a day during the writing of A SireBound if I would've allowed it. Gotta love Damon, big mouth and all. _

_ I can tell you that I'm not entirely certain where Elijah's going with this. But that's not unusual. I wasn't sure where Sire was going either when it started. The story will unfold for all of us, I think. They like to surprise me too, these characters that live in my head._

_ Thank you for any reviews. I appreciate them very much. Hearing your thoughts on my work is always a joy._


	2. Chapter 2

The Guardian, Chpt 2

Elijah let his pride carry him away from her home, considering that was all he felt he had left to stand on. She even replaced the ward on his way off of her property, like a door slamming shut behind him, adding insult to injury.

Concealed in the brush, he had watched her property for several hours after that, assessing. Shortly after he left, he watched several vehicles approach and cross the boundaries of the ward, as if a small army gathered in the wake of his visit. He listened, at a distance to the hum of voices. He caught the scent on the wind of power. It seemed there were others like Harper gathering around her. _Considering that the ward did not repel them, it appeared that he alone was unwelcome._

Standing there, in the snow, Elijah closed his eyes against the painful risk of getting lost in his memories. He was lost in a flash of Christmas when she was ten years old. He had brought her a doll. She had opened it, thanked him kindly for it and set it aside carelessly. He had gone stiff with shock at first when she wordlessly crawled onto his lap and wrapped her small arms around his neck. He realized then that it wasn't gifts she longed for, but affection. She had changed her mind now, ten years later. She wanted nothing from him at all.

Being ever practical, he did his best to set aside emotion and move toward practical action. He found the nearest lodging, renting a room while he decided what he would do next.

He sat on the end of the bed in his small motel room with his elbows propped on both knees, hands clasped together. Even little Harper, who knew him better than anyone, hated him now for what he was. He would've expected this from any other front, except hers. From her gentle soul, this turn of events left him feeling crippled. Every option available to him would end painfully as he saw it. He could give her what she wanted and leave her alone, but he wasn't sure he would survive that. Not with is humanity, anyway. She was the lynch pin that held that in place for him. If he forced his way into her company, he knew now she would fight him there as well. He could give her time, and come back in a few months, or perhaps a year to see if the problem resolved itself, but he had no way of knowing if her hatred would just fester_. He couldn't go forward, and he couldn't go back._

The worst part of it was that he couldn't understand what he had done to earn this violent mistrust. He had to close his eyes against the memory of the hard expression she wore as she had threatened him. He was grateful they had never actually discussed his nature. If they had, he might've confided the full extent of his crimes. Not only was he vampire, but he was a member of the first family, responsible for spreading the plague of vampirism across the globe. He felt sure that would have sealed her opinion of him. That was a little detail he was glad he had kept to himself.

So her arrows, although they could be painful, would not kill him. And werewolf bites, though able to sicken him, would not end his life like they would any other vampire. But she knew none of this and gathered weapons against him all around her. That alone felt painful enough to halt the breath in his chest.

He stood and moved to the mirror, spreading his hands wide on the dresser top. He met his gaze in the reflection. The lines in his face were a little deeper, his eyes a little sadder and darker. He could see that he looked a shadow of himself. _One small woman could do this to him? This is what he had become?_

She had been a trusted friend. Harper was the only person in lifetimes that mattered. Her smile and her soft voice were his only connection to this time. Klaus could move from age to age ravaging as he went without remorse. Elijah could not. Elijah felt no yearning for battle or blood, as his brother did. He longed for peace, solace, warmth. It would be easier if he was like his brother, taking what he wanted wherever he went. But the things Elijah longed for could not be taken. They were a gift freely given, or never given at all.

He had given Harper stability, approval and kindness, all given as generously as he knew how to give. Elijah knew all too well how it felt to be alone in the world. Harper met his gifts with gifts of her own, acceptance, welcome and peace. But all of that was gone now, lost in mistrust. He still didn't understand where it had gone wrong. _And he missed her._

The stranger in her bed was a fact that had the power to make his blood boil. He had no right to feel as he did, but he boiled anyway, his stomach clenched. The man's face in his memory made him long for the feel of grinding bone under his hands as it crumbled. Hatred, hot and furious, burned up his chest. Elijah hadn't felt this passionately about anything in ages. He had the presence of mind to see that, but he couldn't place a name on why he felt the desperate need to kill the other man. He just did. _This tall, dark and broad stranger had touched Harper and Elijah would annihilate him for that mistake._

The pain took a back seat as anger bubbled up, drawing his body tight with tension. She owed him an explanation, if nothing else. _He had never lied to her and he would never dream of hurting her. She would answer for this. Today._

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Elijah knew Harper. He knew how she did things. All he had to do was wait and he knew exactly where to wait.

Harper frequented a small market a few miles from her home. It was small, quiet and her favorite. He also knew that she went there every day, rather than buying in bulk. He couldn't approach the house anymore without setting off her charms and forcing another confrontation that was unlikely to make much progress. This way he could meet her on neutral territory, a strategy he had used before with some success.

Like clockwork, at sundown she walked quietly in the doors of the market and he was close on her heels. She didn't turn to acknowledge him at all, grabbing a hand basket and moving towards the produce. He walked behind her, also silent.

Finally, after a few moments of choosing vegetables and avoiding his eyes, she spoke without looking back at him, "Slumming, Elijah?" Her childlike voice seemed ill suited for sarcasm, but she made it work.

"Hardly that."

"Since I know you have no real interest in any of the _food_ _sold here_, I can't help but wonder what would bring you to a market." Her tone was thick with mockery. She still did not look at him.

He ground his teeth for a moment in frustration. When he spoke, it was through those same clenched teeth. "I never hid what I am from you."

Harper's gaze finally swung up to meet his, fury etching deep valleys into her face. Her black eyes were hard and cold. "No, I suppose that is true." Her eyes narrowed as she turned her body toward him, confronting him now, openly. "But you did hide what it meant to be _a thing_ _like you_."

_A thing like you._ Those words rang across the barrenness of time for him like a bell tolling. Those words spoke volumes about what he had become. Heat rushed into his face as she went on.

"You can dress it up in nice clothes…," She gestured to his suit with an empty hand, disdain written across her smooth young face. "You can conceal it behind fine manners and soft words…." Her eyes narrowed on him with real suspicion. "But the bottom line is that…" She leaned forward, close to his face as she spat the words on a low, angry hiss, "_you are an animal_."

His entire body jerked with the force of her words. He took a step back instinctively, finding her vehemence painful. She advanced on him, the hiss lowering an octave, "You will turn on me eventually. And when you do, I won't even have my pride left." He watched her eyes, which were narrowed on him, begin to leak tears as she went on. "I have decided I won't ever let that happen." One of those tears ran down her face very quickly, leaving a glistening trail across her jaw and down to her throat. Mesmerized, in spite of himself, he watched it until it stopped on a two pronged red and puckered scar on the column of her throat. _A bite. Across her jugular. Someone had fed on his Harper._

Before he could think, he had his arms around her, pushing her hair back over her shoulder.

"What is this?" The rumble of fury came out through his tight jaw and the knot of horror in his throat.

Harper pushed back at him, turning to pull away from his arms. He had turned her head to one side and was trying to examine her throat. But she was terrified…..of him. "Don't _touch_ me!" She shouted the words, drawing the attention of the clerk, who was the only other person in the market.

Elijah tried to hold onto her, calm her, but she broke free easily because he was trying desperately not to hurt her. She threw down her basket of vegetables, sending them scattering across the floor as made for the door at a full on sprint. He was close on her heels, hoping to make her understand he was not her enemy. _He had never been her enemy._

She was out the door, around the corner and Elijah watched in wonder as a blue cloud of smoke formed very quickly and she ran head on into it, completely engulfed in the haze. The horror of her disappearance had him skidding to a stop on the icy ground of the market parking lot. It was then that he heard a rush of sound and a loud, high pitched cry. A great snowy owl, its majestic wings fully expanded, emerged from the blue cloud and took to flight over his head, missing him narrowly. Sparkling blue dust trailed after her as the great wings beat rhythmically against the cold winter winds. She couldn't get away from him fast enough, it seemed.

Alone again and defeated, Elijah called out to her from the cold ground, "I would never hurt you, Harper. Never." Hanging his head, he realized he had no way of knowing if she heard him.


	3. Chapter 3

The Guardian, Chapter 3

Finally he was beginning to understand. Elijah somehow found his way back to his motel room and sat trying to absorb what he had learned. He was at the little desk, clenching and unclenching the hand he had laid across the glass covered top. Harper was terrified of him and rightly so if the marks at her throat were any indication.

Those marks had been deep and savage when they were fresh. The healing indicated the incident had happened three, perhaps four months ago. The width of the bite told him the attacker had probably nearly drained her, more than just puncturing, but actually coming close to severing the jugular vein. There were gentle ways to do these things, and this attack on Harper had been anything but gentle. His jaw was clenched so tight it ached. _Harper was lucky to be alive._ His closed fist rose a few inches above the desktop and came down once shattering the glass top on impact. _She had not called him as they had agreed she would if an emergency ever arose. She had not wanted him with her, or to know. There was nothing she needed from him. _Elijah stood and in one smooth move picked up the small desk with one hand and threw it out the window it sat beneath sending the sound of shattering glass out into the hollow night. He stood with his face to the wind blowing at the curtains and carrying the snow into the small, sad room.

She had nearly been killed. He was sworn to protect her and one of his own kind had nearly taken her life. _How ironic._ She blamed him. _That was just._ He had failed to keep her safe and that was the least of his crimes. He could also understand her fear of him. Someone had taught her that vampires were savage and he could hardly argue the truth of that. _His sophistication was the lie._ At their core, all vampires had one thing in common. They were all monsters. _And he was the chief of monsters; one of the worst, one of the first._

He hung his head as the snow drifted on the wind and into the room beginning to leave a white blanket on the windowsill and the floor.

In that moment he understood everything. Somewhere along the years his kindness to a child had shifted. She had been his responsibility, part of a promise he had made eons ago to protect her family and see that they prospered. But he didn't see a responsibility when he looked at Harper. He saw a woman, a small, sweet and beautiful woman. How had he failed the notice? He was usually a perceptive man. _But then again, love made fools of all men._

He thought of the urgency he had felt over the last few months to see her. The expected relief of seeing her face and hearing her voice had not been waiting for him for the first time and he was lost. The fury he felt when he saw that she was with another man made sense now, too. Jealousy. A long forgotten turmoil. He had not even let himself wonder for more than a moment why it was that he felt that murderous rage. He had longed to lose himself in violence, crushing as he went. Impulsive was not a word that he would've applied to himself. But he knew he would've impulsively killed that stranger with his bare hands and basked in the triumph of it. All because that werewolf had touched Harper. _His Harper._

_He loved her._ He spun, finding himself facing the mirror and catching his image in it again. She was little more than a child and he was her guardian. Regardless of how appropriate it was, he loved her with a wild, savage sort of urgency that made the dark eyes in his reflection unrecognizable.

But he understood too late. The savage light in his eyes had faded to anguish in the silvery reflection of the mirror. He could not change what he was, and she could not love a monster, not after what she had survived. What should've been joy taking flight turned to tragedy as joy instead folded its wings and dropped like a stone to the cold unforgiving ground.

All that was left was to admit defeat.

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Elijah arrived at the painful conclusion that he had little choice but to give Harper what she wanted most, freedom. He waited again at the entrance to her property and the opportunity he needed presented itself as he had hoped it would.

He followed the jeep as it turned toward town, following the deserted road. It took little effort to overtake it and appear in the road, forcing the vehicle to stop. The dark skinned, very broad man that was Harper's friend stepped out of the vehicle. Elijah stood in the middle of the deserted frozen road. The stranger's eyes glowed orange and his body was lowering purposefully to a crouch as Elijah raised his hands in a nonthreatening gesture across the distance.

"I'm only here to talk." Elijah told him, his voice and manner coming across nonthreatening and all business. "Although I will admit that violence does hold a certain appeal."

The man's voice, deep and gruff answered him with the same tone. "Something that we have in common." The werewolf's face spread into a broad and threatening grin. "I'm Ezekiel."

Elijah nodded, acknowledging that he could appreciate a man who had manners even at a time like this. "I'm Elijah."

He watched Ezekiel return to his jeep, leaning back against it and crossing his arms casually.

"What can I do for you, Elijah?" The orange glow had faded from his eyes, but Elijah could see he was still on high alert, appearing to be ready for anything.

He closed the distance between them, unintentionally moving so fast that Ezekiel gave a start when he stopped a few feet from him. Elijah, wearing his customary suit and wool dress coat, tugged at the sleeves of his coat as he prepared to admit defeat to this stranger. The pain in his chest was well beyond an ache now, more like an open and seeping wound. But he gave no sign of the pain it caused him to relinquish her safety to this other man.

"Harper." He said her name and his throat closed for a second. He coughed, cleared his throat and went on, his voice tight. "She will need someone to protect her." Elijah forced himself to meet his rival's eyes, one eyebrow high. "It would appear she has chosen you." The disdain he felt leaked out in his tone.

Ezekiel tipped his head back and loud deep laughter rang into the air around them. "Oh, wow. That's great." Ezekiel drew great breaths trying to get control of his mirth and Elijah was left to stand with his arms crossed feeling a mixture of frustration and confusion.

When Ezekiel finally got ahold of himself, he said, with a grin, "Harper said you were old fashioned. _I had no idea_." He sputtered into chuckles again. "She would kick my ass if I told her I was gonna protect her from anything."

Elijah narrowed his eyes on the tall man and gave voice to his confusion. "I know that she has some power, but she isn't strong enough to stand on her own."

The man's dark eyes widened. His grin widened with them. "I can see that you've been out of the loop for a while." He moved back and up onto the hood of his jeep, making himself comfortable as he slid backward to find a seat. "Norah's been training her. She says Harper's the strongest she's seen in a long while. And she's only going to get stronger with time."

He had no idea who Norah was, but thought of the power he had caught the scent of on the wind from outside Harper's property. He wondered idly how long that had been going on. She had never mentioned it.

Elijah noticed that the man's attitude had changed from suspicious to conversational. Following Ezekiel's lead, he approached the jeep and leaned back against it, crossing his arms casually. "Why are you telling me this?"

Ezekiel's smile faded. "Look, man, I don't like vampires, as a rule. Don't get me wrong. But you're not at all like that bastard that almost killed her. You've known her for years and never hurt her." He seemed to be studying Elijah closely. "I think she's being unfair, but right now she's just angry at…." He held his hands up, shrugging. "Well, she's angry with everyone."

"Will you tell me what happened?"

Ezekiel shook his head. "Not and get to keep breathing." He met Elijah's gaze and grinned easily. "I like breathing."

Elijah laughed. He didn't mean to, but it came out anyway.

Encouraged, Ezekiel continued. "The last time I got her mad, I ended up spending a week in her stables. She said I was acting like a horses' ass. I ended up with four spindly legs and a mane. Then she couldn't figure out how to turn me back."

In other circumstances, Elijah decided he would've liked the werewolf. As things stood though, he still would've preferred to just kill him. Somehow, though during this quiet conversation, he found that his plan was shifting. He had intended that he would relinquish Harper's safety and happiness to the werewolf and walk away. Now he wasn't so sure.

"What are the chances I could talk to her without dodging arrows?"

Ezekiel rubbed his chin, appearing to think hard. "We are planning on hunting tomorrow night…." His face grew serious and he studied Elijah's face for a long moment. "You wouldn't hurt her." He wasn't asking a question. He seemed to be answering his own. His eyes narrowed on Elijah for a minute before he laughed again, the sound echoing into the quiet, a deep raspy, joyful sound. "Oh, my. You're in love with her." Elijah considered crushing his windpipe, just with the frustration, but managed to stay where he was. "Bless your heart."

Elijah's eyes had narrowed and fury was creeping slowly in. Through a tight jaw, he said, "Listen, Ezekiel…." His tone was a warning because standing and watching his rival laugh in his face was more than Elijah would've let pass without violence, but the man stopped him, reaching out with a friendly hand on his shoulder.

"Please, call me Zeke. And I'll help you. She needs you." He went very still at Zeke's words. Elijah had thought…..

Zeke gasped loudly. "Oh, no. No! No! No! Uhnn uhhh!" Elijah watched the blood drain from Zeke's face as he jumped off the hood of the jeep, shaking his head emphatically. "No, man." Zeke broke it down because Elijah was still watching him closely. "I stay with Harper sometimes because my place is being renovated. We're friends. I'd never….We don't….It's not….." The large man raised his hands in surrender, at a loss for words and all humor gone.

Elijah watched the man that had done most of the talking for this meeting suddenly rendered speechless. "A psychic werewolf? Interesting." Elijah raised a brow as he went on. "If you and Harper aren't involved, I don't have to kill you anymore." Elijah shrugged, smiling freely for the first time. "That's a relief. I wasn't looking forward to getting my hands dirty."


	4. Chapter 4

The Guardian, Chapter 4

All Elijah had to do now was wait. He wore a black suit and black wool overcoat against the winds that didn't really matter to him one way or the other. He stood as the sun began to set in a gathering of trees with what appeared to be an old campsite in the middle. There was an old makeshift fire site and logs surrounding it that would make seats. There was no one here yet, but they would come according to the werewolf. He made a seat for himself on one of the logs and watched the golden sunset bouncing like a child's ball across the reflective snow that covered every surface. It set off the whole forest for a few moments like diamonds caught in a golden spotlight. After so long, Elijah had learned to enjoy beauty where he found it.

Idly, he watched the light bounce all around him and couldn't help but think of her. His tendency to appreciate beauty was probably how loving Harper had crept up on him. She had a beautiful heart and he had thought he was only protecting and honoring it. Instead he had been pulled in and gotten lost in her orbit somehow. His fists both clenched again in the black leather gloves he wore. He didn't really expect this meeting to go well. He held out very little hope, but he had to try.

With the help of Zeke, Elijah had a plan. He would not have expected to find an ally in the werewolf, but he had and he was grateful. All he hoped for now was an opportunity to talk quietly with Harper. He wanted more than anything to tell her that he wouldn't dream of hurting her, even if she wouldn't believe. Then he would give her as much time as she needed. He could be patient. He would also find out who had hurt her and deliver his head on a platter to her if she wanted it. _Either way, in that situation, there would be blood. _His lips drew back from his teeth in a feral smile just at that train of thought.

Darkness crept upon him, and still he sat, waiting for the sounds of vehicles. Finally, he heard the engine of the jeep the werewolf drove and another vehicle that was larger and heavier. Even from the distance, he could hear that their hunting party had been successful. He heard two female vampires fighting in the back of what appeared to be a tractor trailer. The werewolf had explained that Harper and some of their friends had taken it upon themselves to clear out the vampires in the area, and apparently when they started, there had been many. There were two left and they had set traps for them, poisoned them with vervain and planned to dispose of them here so that the bodies could be burned with the authorities none the wiser. It was a dangerous game they played, but Elijah kept that opinion to himself.

He concealed himself behind some trees as Harper, an older blonde woman who appeared to be a witch, two other werewolves and Zeke unloaded the vampires from the trailer and made preparations. He watched the two female vampires closely, seeing a clear contrast that evidently the others hadn't noticed.

They forced the two vampires to the center of the circle where they had gathered kindling for a fire. One of the vampires, the one with blonde hair, watched them coldly, cursing and obviously waiting for an opportunity to escape. The other, a tall brunette, said nothing and kept her head down while tears ran slowly down her pale face. Both of them were bound by ropes which were evidently soaked in vervain water from the burning scent he noticed.

Elijah saw an opportunity to make a point and stepped out of the trees approaching quickly enough that no one saw him until he wanted them to. When he stopped, he stood at the center of their circle with the two females that had been sentenced to die.

Confusion momentarily erupted around him.

At his appearance, Harper froze. "Elijah?" She held her cross bow again, with it not aimed at him for the moment. It was pointed now at the ground in her surprise. The others were close by, but he paid them and the ruckus they stirred no attention.

"I'm not here to hurt you or your friends, Harper." He spoke only to her, his voice low and his tone consoling. "I will do what you want, and leave you alone. But I will talk to you before I go." The last sentence held a little of his frustration.

He turned and looked at the two vampires who had both gone still at his appearance. They seemed to recognize his status and strength, if not who he was. They both had grown completely silent.

He removed a glove and crooked a finger at Harper, who was still so stunned that she had nearly discarded the crossbow. It hung at her side. Her dark eyes were wide and she shivered in the wind, pushing her black hair back off of her face.

"There is something I would like to show you. Will you trust me, just this one last time?" The words were quiet and only for her, but one of the other werewolves he didn't know called out to Harper, telling her not to trust him. Elijah swung a baleful look on the stranger who went still at the same time that Zeke came up behind the other man and put a hand on his shoulder to restrain him. Zeke winked at Elijah from the distance and no one saw but Elijah.

He turned his attention back to Harper. "Please?" He held his ungloved hand out to her across the distance of ten yards. Harper stooped and set the crossbow down. She had squared her shoulders and her eyes were wide and reminded him of the childlike trust he had always seen in her until a few days ago. He watched, his old heart swelling with pride as she stepped over the snow carefully and put her hand in his. So brave.

His face spread to a smile and it felt unfamiliar. He hadn't had much to smile about in the last few days. Moving quickly, he leaned close and kissed the top of the hand she had set in his. He watched the blood rush to her cheeks as her eyes moved quickly over his face, his expressions, as if he was a puzzle she was trying to solve.

He turned to the blonde vampire who was still bound. She wore a blue sweater and a denim skirt with black boots. The clothes were covered in blood and none of it appeared to be hers. Elijah reached out and tipped the young female's face up so that Harper could see. He brought Harper close and said "Do you see her eyes?" The vampire stared hard back at Elijah, ignoring Harper completely. "Do you see how hard and emotionless they are?" Harper had moved close, looking where he indicated. Harper turned after a moment of close inspection and nodded to Elijah.

He went on. "This one would rip out your throat in a moment and never give it another thought." He pulled away from the blonde and turned back to Harper. "Vampires can lose their humanity, their connection to humans very easily. This is what they become if that happens. They have no regard for life, feel no love or hate or anything else but need. They need sex, they need blood and not much else." He took his ungloved hand and sank it suddenly into the chest of the blonde, emerging swiftly and soundlessly with her heart. He opened his hand and showed the still beating heart to Harper. "Life is one long feast for them. _These vampires should be eliminated._ You and your friends are correct. Whoever attacked you was no doubt in the same soulless condition this young vampire was in." He carelessly dropped the heart at her feet, blood still streaming from his bare hand.

Harper's face had paled and her eyes had widened further in what appeared to be wonder. She didn't look at the heart at her feet, the blood on her hand, or the crumpled body of the blonde in the snow. Her eyes were moving swiftly over his face.

He turned to the brunette female. She gasped, drew a long breath and exhaled slowly as tears renewed their stream down her face. She wore only a black shirt and jeans, her hair cut in a chin length bob. Frightened green eyes met Elijah's as he put a bloody finger under her chin and forced it up for his inspection.

"Harper, do you see the difference?" The vampire's eyes were terrified, emotions running rampant in their depths. Fear, hope, horror. It was all there for Elijah to see.

Harper answered him. "I see what I would be feeling in her eyes if that was me." Her voice was strong, determined, but quiet.

He turned and met Harper's dark eyes feeling proud of her insight. "Exactly." He turned away from the brunette. "This one still has her humanity. This happens with connections to humans, with making honest effort not to kill needlessly, with consideration for others." He stepped close to Harper, forcing her to tilt her head to meet his eyes. "When you kill her, it will be like killing another human. You should know that. I won't kill her. Her fate is up to you and your friends, but I can tell you she doesn't deserve to die, or she wouldn't have her humanity intact."

"So there's a difference?" Harper's voice had dropped to hushed wonder.

He nodded, feeling relieved that she not only understood, but took the time to listen. He stooped and cleaned his bloody hand in the snow before standing and replacing his black glove and turning slightly away from her, ready to go as he had promised.

"I just wanted for you to understand." He finished. He noted that she was still standing close to him and had not yet returned to her friends. He didn't know what that meant, but he felt encouraged. But she promptly ended that with her next question.

"Which one are you, then?" The soft question blew a hole in his chest. He took a step back from the force of the blast. _So this was what she thought of him. _

He drew a steadying breath and blinked hard a few times before turning back to her. "If you have to ask me that question, the answer is irrelevant." He started to turn away but she moved to stand in front of him.

"No, wait." She spoke fast and low. He could see in the light that her eyes had filled. "I've hurt you. I'm sorry." She moved a step closer, her breath misting between the two of them. "I've been unfair, then." Harper wasn't meeting his gaze anymore, but twisting her hands between the two of them. "I suppose you're angry with me."

He needed another draw of air before he could answer, she looked so small and fragile there in the light from the moon, her head bowed. "What I am is heart and soul in love with you, little Harper." His normally steady voice sounded like a raspy croak as he said the words aloud. He wasn't a man to hide from such things or dance around the truth. He felt it, she should know it and let the chips fall where they may.

He settled into wary stillness when she met his eyes and took another step, closing the space between them. She threaded her hands around him into his open coat until her hands met behind him and she was wrapped around him under the black wool. His arms came down to hold her, something he hadn't even let himself dream about feeling. She had tipped her face up meet his gaze. He felt beyond being capable of grasping what was happening.

She rose on her tiptoes in his arms and met his lips with her own for the first time. The gesture was so small, so simple and tore through him with the destructive force of a windstorm, leaving any baggage he had been carrying scattered in the wind like so much debris. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. All he had left was to feel, and he felt her everywhere. His arms drew her closer, he sank into the kiss while she swept through him, making a home for herself in his soul. Her hands roamed over his back and he shivered under them. She moved away and for the span of a breath he thought she would leave him, but she only returned to wrap her small arms around his neck, locking them there. She pulled away and he watched her with hungry eyes moving over her face and wondering what she was thinking, what had brought on this tenderness. Her eyes were calm and knowing. She spoke for the first time. "I'm heart and soul in love with you too, Elijah. I have been for as long as I can remember. I was dying inside thinking I couldn't trust you anymore. It made me angry with everyone and everything."


	5. Chapter 5

The guardian, Chapter 5

Elijah still stood at the window; still lost in the past until he focused again on the white haze outside. The snow had gained strength and the barns, some distance away, were lost in the blur the world had become. The tumult outside mirrored his mood. He and Harper had certainly taken their time in understanding one another. He remembered those days as some of his most painful and the turmoil they could still arouse left his jaw clenched tightly.

He had learned his lesson. He needed her. For reasons he couldn't begin to understand, she felt the same. They had made a life together, when he could be with her, of that mutual need.

They had talked, so long ago, about the vampire who had nearly killed her and made her stop trusting him. When he had offered to go after the bastard Harper had assured him that the one responsible would return and when he did, she wanted to do the deed herself. It hadn't sat well with him at first, being from a time when men were the hands and feet of vengeance, but she had insisted. The two of them had even argued over it, but had set aside the issue as the details of day to day living intruded. He had learned that enjoying life with her was more important than wrath.

Elijah turned his back on the frozen world outside and wandered idly back to the warm fire and the soft chair, hearing Harper moving around in the kitchen. He caught a scent on the air and realized she was brewing tea.

His thoughts wandered back again to what he knew about the one who had nearly cost him everything. She had always refused to give him a name for the guilty party. Only a couple of ambiguous details had ever seeped out. Harper had called him "the blue eyed demon". He also knew that the man had charmed his way onto her property as a guest for a couple of months, bringing another like him along. Elijah, in the process of reaching for a discarded book, froze. His entire frame was locked into thoughtful stillness.

The murderous bastard had come with someone. _A brother_. Like him. Also a vampire. Blue eyed. _A "demon"._ The pieces slotted together like a puzzle adding details he had not considered in ages to paint a picture that made his gut clench with fury. In his mind's eye he could see the remorse in Damon Salvatore's expressions and gestures as he and Harper had talked weeks ago. Elijah had purposely tuned out the conversations as a courtesy to Harper, who preferred not to have every conversation overseen by her lover.

In his stillness, rage loomed behind his eyes, making the whole room glitter at him through a dense red cloud. He swallowed hard and expelled a breath slowly.

"Harper?" He called to her from the other room, his voice quietly cautious to his own ears.

"Yes?"

"When did you meet Damon Salvatore?" He dropped the question as casually as he could. He had to be sure.

"Hm….." There was a clang from the kitchen as she put a pan away. She sounded distracted. _Good._ "I guess it was the early eighties."

Elijah was propelled out the door and into the snowy haze by the explosion of fury in his chest. He was a noble man from a brutal time. At this moment though, he was a brutal man hell bent on destruction. The cabins sat twenty miles north of Harper's home and he knew the way very well. In the riot of the snowstorm, he made his way over that twenty miles as if nothing dared stand in his way. Trees ducked, wildlife scattered, even the wind itself seemed to clear a path for the blustering furor of Elijah, full of righteous wrath.

He had nearly hand delivered Damon Salvatore's heart's desire to him with a phone call just that morning, calling to cajole him into meeting his neighbor, Elena. Now he was realizing that thirty years ago, that same one who had tried to strip Elijah of a future with the woman he loved. Damon had been the vampire to attack Harper all those years ago and nearly take her life. The idea that the bastard thought he had gotten away with it made Elijah's blood boil under his skin. He would exact such a revenge that Damon would wish he had never stepped foot in Elijah's path. He would make Damon wish he could die, and then make him beg for it.

Elijah stretched his arms wide to embrace the violence in his heart. Wrath was a long forgotten friend, one he had disregarded in his quiet quest to maintain his humanity. Together he and wrath would do this thing and no one would ever dream of touching his woman again. The furious thing inside him howled against his breast for blood and satisfaction.

He found the cabin Elena was using weathering the storm with a plume of smoke nearly lost in the windy afternoon and frigid air. He was covered in a layer of snow from head to toe now. He struck the door at full speed. It landed in woodchips all around him.

Just inside the door, he quickly located his target who had turned in surprise. He was in a chair, near the fire. With one hand, he backhanded Damon across the room sending him to strike the wall high and slide down as a table and a chair also came to woodchips in the landing. Damon blinked hard, his mouth opening in surprise as he recognized his attacker. Elijah watched the blue eyes away, the other man's expression moving quickly to acceptance with a trace of shame mixed in for good measure. The bastard knew. He didn't have to ask why Elijah was there. He knew. A rumble of fury rose from Elijah's chest as he moved forward stepping hard on first one calf and then the other, feeling the bones give. The wet snap and grind under his shoes told him his aim was sound.

From behind, a form struck him, landing on his back with several stout blows. He shook off the attacker with one hand and a single blow. It was then that he saw Salvatore's blue eyes showing fear for the first time. Fear for someone else. Salvatore was afraid for Elena, not for himself. Before the snake could speak, he struck him once across the face and felt the jawbone break under his fist. Still the wrath baying wildly for freedom inside Elijah was not satisfied.

He lifted Salvatore by his shirt and pushed his back against the wall. He lodged one forearm against the vampire's throat and used the other hand to rapidly move over the abdomen breaking bones as he went. He started at the sternum with a single, open handed blow and felt again the satisfying wet crunch of bone crumbling. He moved to the left collar bone and then the right. He watched pain explode behind blue eyes as he moved to one side and then the other breaking bones as he went. His victim rippled and groaned with the pain, flailing for freedom without effect. He would make this last. _And then wrath would be satisfied._

Dimly, he heard crying, begging from someone behind him. Hands were pulling at him, hitting, but he didn't even notice really. Finally one word penetrated.

"Why?" The word was a wail from Elena. She was sobbing and fighting with both hands, but Elijah was entirely unmoved by her efforts.

Elijah paused, his face a rictus of furious purpose. "He knows why." The words were a growl through clenched teeth.

Winds and debris struck him from behind like a fist, but again he was unmoved. He did pause in his work of maiming Salvatore as caught her scent. Harper was close. She could become part of the storm if she wanted; her fastest form of travel. No doubt she had guessed where he was and his purpose. He felt, rather than saw Harper stepping across the threshold of the now broken door. The pressure had shifted as the twisting winds ceased and she moved back to human form.

He was crushing ribs under his left hand. Blood had begun to seep out around Salvatore's lips as he choked. He still continued to meet Elijah's eyes with pained acceptance of his fate. Which was just as well because nothing was going to change that fate.

He felt a small hand taking hold of his right upper arm. Harper. His awareness of her was something beyond his control. He knew where she was. He would always know.

"Elijah." Her voice was soft, sweet. Wrath howled to catch his attention again as he crushed Damon's hand with his own.

The voice came again. Insistent and soft. "Elijah, I've chosen to forgive him."

He had expected that. But he was ready with an answer. "I have not."

She came back quickly, gaining volume and sounding so very reasonable. "It is my life, Elijah. My decision."

He released Salvatore and spun on her. His victim slid in a heap to the floor.

"Do you still not understand, Harper? _Your life is my life._ And he nearly extinguished it. How _the hell_ could you dream of forgiving that?" He hadn't realized until that moment that he wasn't just ready to kill Damon. He was furious with Harper too, that she would put so little value on her life and let Salvatore charm his way out of retribution.

Elijah was so lost in all of the emotions that blew first hot and then cold like jet streams across an ocean that he had missed a very important detail. Two more people had joined the drama of blizzards, vengeance and lover's quarrels.

The deeply accented voice of his brother, Klaus drew Elijah to a stillness of utter horror. "How touching." The familiar, accented voice was thick with mockery, his expression smug. "I should've guessed it would be a woman that could reduce my dignified brother to slathering fury." Klaus and Stefan stepped across the broken door and threshold of Elena's broken cabin.

Elijah's worst fears were now realized. What Elijah loved, Klaus destroyed. It had always been this way, a pattern they continued to render together across time.


	6. Chapter 6

The Guardian, Chapter 6

Elijah felt like his world had just skidded to a halt. His younger brother considered attachment to anyone but him an act of disloyalty. Klaus had destroyed Elijah's relationships in the past by any means necessary. This was the reason that none of his family knew about Harper…..until now.

Elijah wiped Salvatore's blood from his hand, onto a rag he found lying close and turned to meet Klaus' questioning eyes.

"What brings you to this frozen wasteland, brother? I happen to know you prefer much warmer climes." He was proud of how calm his voice was. He was moving Harper with one hand to stand behind him, blocking her body with his own. He noticed from his peripheral vision that Elena seemed frozen where she stood and Damon had yet to regain consciousness.

Klaus smiled broadly but Elijah noted that it never reached his eyes. Klaus' blue eyes were as hard and angry as he had ever seen them. "This is my good deed for the day. I'm here being a _loyal_ chum." The last phrase was thick with his brand of irony. He motioned to Stefan. "He insisted on "saving Elena from herself" and I came along to lend a hand." He leaned against the partially shattered doorframe as the wind from the storm whistled through carrying snow in around him. "But I would say that _you_ are the _real surprise_ here."

Klaus moved unexpectedly just enough to venture a glance behind Elijah to Harper, who was trying to push Elijah's hands away and step out from behind him. _Of all things, she chose now to fight with him._

Klaus' smile spread a little wider, his tone turning ever more charming. To Harper, he said, "And who would you be, sweetheart?"

Harper gave Elijah's hand one last swat before she stepped out from behind him. He wanted to give a sigh of relief as he saw that her black eyes were watchful as she stepped up. She came to stand under Elijah's arm, nestling herself against his side.

She smiled a little and cast her black eyes demurely to the floor, saying nothing. _Elijah wasn't fooled for a moment._

"Well, aren't you the sweetest little thing?" Klaus was mocking her now, and digging a hole, though he couldn't know it. Elijah could feel her tensing against him.

She pushed her hair back over her shoulder as she swung her dark eyes up to meet his. "Aren't you going to introduce me, Elijah?" Her tone was prim and shy, but he saw a sparkle in her eyes. She understood much more than he had realized. Her eyes nearly danced.

He cleared his throat, turning to Klaus, "Harper, Niklaus is my brother. Niklaus, this is Harper." Harper extended her hand at the formal introduction.

Klaus obligingly reached out to take her hand and let out a pained gasping groan as the flesh was stripped right off of his hand to the wrist before it met hers. There was no blood, only a tearing sound as flesh and muscle were cleanly rent from bone and disappeared.

Harper pulled her hand away as Klaus wrapped the other hand around his wrist, cradling the injured hand against his body. Already he had started to heal, muscle reforming at attaching as he watched it and groaned again a bit with the unexpected pain. Harper tilted her head to one side, watching silently. The entire room had gone still and quiet aside from the whistling wind through the broken door.

Her brow had furrowed as Harper spoke. She turned to Elijah. "That is very interesting, dear." She motioned to Klaus' hand. "That is my protection ward. It measures ill intent. From the severity of the response, I have to ask why your brother is intending to kill me?" Her voice was sweet and innocent, but Elijah heard the mockery in it.

Elijah smiled. _Klaus had no idea._ He would see what she did with this. He would battle his brother until the skies rolled up like a scroll to keep her safe if he had to, but right now he was fascinated with Harper's reaction to this turn of events.

"I suppose, dear Harper, you will need to ask Niklaus that question."

Klaus' smile was long gone, his eyes hard, his jaw clenched and his lips a thin white line. He sneered a little at her. "Are you, little Harper, the reason I have noticed divided loyalties in my brother over the last few years?"

There was a groan behind them. Damon. He was waking. Harper turned to Klaus and held up a single finger. "Your brother and I were in the middle of an argument and I see an opportunity to make my point. Can you hold that thought?" Elijah suppressed a grin, but just barely, as he watched indignation flicker in Klaus' blue eyes. He wasn't accustomed to such casual treatment, but he failed to speak before she turned away. By then it was too late and Harper was on to other things.

Elijah turned and watched her step across some broken furniture and move over to Salvatore, who was stirring and opening his eyes dimly. Harper stooped and took one of his hands. He heard her whisper that she was sorry, which fueled his anger again. But then she was calling for Elijah to come see something.

Still holding Damon's freshly healed hand, she took Elijah's too when he joined her. She motioned toward Damon. "Look." Annoyed, Elijah stooped beside her to look where she indicated. He saw Damon's blue eyes looking back at him.

"I don't know what you want me to see." He was getting annoyed and the last thing he wanted was to be discussing in front of his brother whether he should be killing the older Salvatore for crimes Klaus didn't know about.

She shook his hand. "Look at his eyes, Elijah. Remember what you told me, all those years ago?"

Elijah turned and saw Damon again. This time he really looked. He saw fear, pain, hope, worry, shame. It was all reflected there in the blue eyes he had seen so many times. _Damon's humanity._ Elijah had never doubted Damon's humanity. _His common sense, yes, but never his humanity._

He clenched his jaw, knowing that Harper was making the point that Damon couldn't have his humanity and still be killing without remorse. She was saying that Damon didn't deserve to die. Frustration settled into every line of his face as he turned back to Harper.

"It doesn't matter, Harper. This doesn't change what he did."

"But _it changes everything_. I would've killed the one who hurt me if he'd ever returned here. But _he never came back_. This is what I found instead. When he regained his humanity, he became another person. Thanks to this little girl, here, I think." She turned and nodded at Elena who smiled a little at Harper. Elena had moved to the other side and was holding Damon's other hand. "He's no longer the person who hurt me all those years ago. I can't blame him for something someone else did. _And neither should you."_

Redemption. He and Harper had discussed the concept many times. The subject troubled Elijah because although he had spent centuries trying to preserve his humanity, he had done things he wasn't proud of. Over the years, he had hurt people to accomplish his own ends. He had manipulated, injured and even killed. She was telling him that this was Damon's chance at redemption, just as Elijah sought his own.

Harper liked to say that nothing anyone did took place in a vacuum. There were always more people hurt than those directly involved and unintended consequences. Actions rippled outward, either hurting or healing. Some called it karma. Others called it the law of sowing and reaping. Either way, if Elijah could chase after redemption, he could hardly extinguish someone else's pursuit of it in the name of vengeance. The man he was even five decades ago would've killed Salvatore just out of principle, humanity or no humanity. Harper often suggested that if he wanted a different result, he should try a different path. How did someone get so wise while having lived only fifty years? _Damn it._

Elijah's eyes closed as the wrath in his heart folded up and disappeared in a puff of futile smoke. _He hated it when she was right. _Without a word, Elijah nodded to Harper and stood. She came and took his hand and the two of them joined Klaus. Stefan had moved over to speak urgently to Elena, who was shaking her head and staying close to Damon.

It seemed that Harper had lost patience with Klaus before he even opened his mouth or had the chance to further insult her.

"I know who you are. I know what you're capable of. And no, your brother never mentioned you." She nodded at Elijah. "He has been as quiet as a tomb about his "family". But your reputation precedes you, just the same." She motioned to Klaus' hand. "You want me dead because your brother cares about me."

She turned and seemed to be studying Elijah's profile. "As for Elijah being disloyal, I've never known a more loyal man. So I don't have a clue what you would mean. But I think that there's a fight brewing between the two of you, and I'm not going to get caught in it."

Klaus smiled, and Elijah saw it was genuine this time. "So we're speaking plainly. Fair enough. He has his secrets. This is who my brother is. It's when those secrets interfere with his loyalty to me that I become angry." Klaus pulled out a chair that had not been broken in Elijah's rampage earlier and made himself comfortable. "In my book, that means I need to remove whatever divides his loyalty." He motioned to Harper, still smiling. "That would appear to be you."

Harper laughed. Elijah was amazed, and faintly uncomfortable, but she laughed. Great loud roaring laughter filled the open cabin and drowned out the whistling winds. By the time she had regained control, Elijah was smiling a little himself.

"And how has that worked at maintaining his loyalty?" The mockery was thick in her voice and she laughed again. She was entirely unconcerned when Klaus' anger drove him back to standing. He moved in close, still not touching her.

"Don't laugh at me, little girl." Klaus' words came out through his clenched jaw, his face was white with anger and the entire cabin had gone still again. His tone was the same deadly quiet Elijah knew so well and Elijah tensed, prepared to defend her.

Harper continued to smile and only crossed her arms in reaction. "I'm sorry, Klaus. I know that's supposed to be scary, but…um….." She shrugged, grinning. She motioned to Elijah. "Even if you were to find your way through my protective wards, I have had a good life loving your brother. I can go peacefully to my ancestors. You, on the other hand, will spend the next two centuries, at least, as a barnyard animal. It's my version of a Dead Man's Switch. If I die, the spell is set off. Anyone to blame in my death will be turned. Pigs, chickens, cats, horses, cattle...take your pick. It won't hurt much….except perhaps your dignity. The spell is backed up by a hundred powerful ancestors and a dozen living witches. There's no way around it. You see….I saw you coming ages ago." She shrugged as if all of this really was no big deal. But Elijah saw the implications and knew his brother only too well. Klaus had gotten very tense and even more pale suddenly.

Elijah was enjoying this. These things were all news to him. He really had never discussed Klaus with Harper, or his fears. He had worried for years about this day, and while he had worried, Harper had been preparing. _How_ _wonderful_. Harper should've been a man. He was very glad she was not, but she would've made a very intimidating man. All of this power and confidence in such a small, pretty little package left him in awe, even now.

Klaus' eyes had narrowed as he watched Harper, and sat slowly in his seat again. "And if I think you're bluffing?"

Harper chuckled good-naturedly. "Well, it's your future and dignity you're gambling with. But I will tell you that anyone who knows me will tell you I never bluff. I suck at poker."


	7. Chapter 7

The Guardian, Chapter 7

Elijah had crossed his arms, standing quietly in the midst of the shattered furniture in the sad little cabin as he watched Harper get the best of his brother. Here again he was setting aside baser instincts to allow Harper to stand on her own. She was actually doing very well. His little Harper had outwitted his brother. Klaus would not relish the idea of ending up living in a stable somewhere. But he was also resourceful, and that was enough to worry Elijah, regardless of Harper's power and preparation.

She might have a casual attitude toward the prospect of meeting her death, but he didn't. He had told her once before just that day how he felt about the subject. _Her life was his life._ He didn't know how he would face even a sunrise without her and had given considerable thought to changing her himself so that he had one less thing to worry about. That was another thing he had never discussed with her in all this time. He knew how she felt on the subject.

Harper treasured the natural balance and rhythm of life. Her belief was wrapped around the idea that there were seasons for all things. Even death. Elijah wasn't sure he could let that happen. Ultimately, he was a selfish man.

Across the room what had been a confrontation between the Salvatore brothers and the lovely Elena was turning heated. Elena's quiet voice rose, even above the wind and the tension between Klaus and Harper.

"I am not going _anywhere_ Stefan. He's hurt. Can you not see that?" Her frustration with Damon's brother gave her voice volume.

Damon was still leaned against the floor where Elijah had left him. Some of his clothing was bloody, Elijah could see that the largest portion of his bones had already knit back together and were well on their way to healing. He was only living to see that happen because Harper had intervened. For some reason, she saw value in the oldest Salvatore. Elijah didn't, but he had to concede that there was always the chance his dislike was anchored more in possessiveness than anything about the other vampire. Harper liked him. Therefore Elijah didn't, especially. He was a cautious man. He kept what was his.

Harper had other male friends that didn't inspire this sort of reaction from Elijah. For some reason, Harper and Damon's shared history and the other vampire's charm and good looks put Elijah's teeth on edge. There was always the chance that his savage reaction to the fact that Damon had hurt her was also anchored in jealousy, because Harper was willing to forgive with what had appeared to be ease. Now he knew better, but the other man still left him cold. He probably always would.

His eyes strayed to Elena. Whenever she was around, he found himself watching her closely, seeing something in her that felt familiar, aside from her doppelganger status. As she argued with Stefan a little more vigorously, he watched her jaw set, tensing and pulsing as she clenched her teeth in anger. He had seen Harper do the same thing….often. He smiled a little at the thought.

He had Harper had their disagreements, which never stopped the loving. It added something, if he was honest. The same spirit he admired in Harper, he was now recognizing in Elena. A flash of realization struck and he understood that the similarities between the two women went deeper than that. This was why he had always admired Elena as he did. She reminded him of his Harper.

He met Harper's dark eyes telling her without speaking that he was about to head across the room and intervene. She smiled at him, touching his hand silently. She thought he was kind. She was deluded, but he loved her. He was grateful that she wanted to see good in him.

Elijah moved silently across the room, focusing on the argument completely now.

Elena was throwing one hand in the air, holding firmly to Damon's hand and sitting stubbornly beside him. "I told you the bond was broken before I left home. I'm here because I want to be. I don't need saving. I'm not leaving."

Stefan was equally as vehement as he murmured back "Elena you're just not yourself. You're not thinking clearly. We almost have the cure and I'm not willing to just leave you here with him. How can you just forget all he's done?"

The argument was happening without any response at all from Damon, who sat on the floor, eyes closed and holding Elena's hand. The silence seemed out of character, but he didn't speak or move, only listening.

Elena turned caustic dark eyes on Stefan. "I haven't _forgotten _anything. I've _forgiven_. Maybe you should try it. Damon's not perfect, but I'm not perfect either. God Stefan, you're so….." Her voice trailed off, at a loss for words.

Damon seemed to find his voice then. Without opening his eyes, Damon supplied the words for her. "Self-righteous? Judgmental? Self-satisfied? A sore loser who uses more hair product than most women?" Elena turned, fighting a smile and pressed a kiss to Damon's cheek. Damon shifted against the wall, opening his eyes for the first time to meet his brother's anger.

But rather than speak to Stefan, he addressed Elena while he stared his brother in the eyes. "Elena, go home with Stefan."

"No!" She moved closer to Damon, wrapping her arms around his torso. "Don't you dare try to get rid of me now. I told you that where you go I go, whether you like it or not." Elijah watched triumph flicker in the blue eyes that were locked on his brother.

Elijah stepped in then. "I would think, Stefan, that Elena's answer settles the question of a sire bond still being in place." Stefan swung on Elijah, looking at him like he was a stranger for a second. He seemed to be reeling. Elijah elaborated because Stefan seemed confused. "Damon gave her a direct command. She refused. A sire bond would not have allowed such a thing. Elena is here because she wants to be. It would appear there is no one here who needs saving." _At least not anymore. Harper had been the rescuer here today._

Across the room, Harper spoke up. She was still standing a couple of feet from where Klaus had sank back onto the only chair that wasn't reduced to kindling. "Actually, Elijah, there might be one more." She was smiling. He watched as the blue cloud he was so accustomed to now gathered behind her. She even had Klaus' attention as she leaned back into it and disappeared.

She always amazed him when she did that.

She emerged from the blue cloud as the massive mountain lion with electric blue eyes. She was easily three times the size of a normal mountain lion, standing five feet tall and twice that from nose to tail. Her tail whipped around gracefully, blue dust trailing behind her. The massive golden form rippled with controlled power under muscle and fur as she loped across the small cabin. Dimly, Elijah noticed that the storm outside had eased. With a single motion, she struck the door frame and it gave with a groan, tearing away to make room for her. She was broader than the doorway could contain.

Elijah grinned openly as he watched Klaus' eyes move over her cautiously.

She addressed Klaus. Her savagely fanged mouth opened and Harper's voice emerged. "We could spend days trading barbs, Niklaus. But I find that I don't really want to. I have a suggestion. I think you should stay with us, Elijah and I, at our home. We have the room and an open door policy. You are welcome. And it would give you time to work out a way to kill me." She sat on her haunches, just outside the door and licked the snow off of a front paw. Her actions said she was unconcerned. Elijah was more so. She had just invited his violent brother to stay in their home. _Had she just lost her damned mind?_

But before he could work out what the hell she was thinking, she turned, swinging the broad triangular head around the room to center on Stefan. "You, however, I have issues with."

Stefan blinked, surprised by her attention before he spoke, "Harper, it's nice to see you again."

"Oh, I feel the same. I've been waiting for you." Her tail whipped, wrapping around her and then straightening out again. It mirrored her mood, which was agitated at the moment.

Stefan raised empty hands at her. "I don't know what you mean, Harper."

"Then let me explain. After Damon turned up here a few weeks ago, I got curious. I ran some detection spells and found that he wasn't the only one responsible for the incident that nearly killed me thirty years ago." She licked her paw again, the frozen snow on the tip of her tongue for a moment. Her jagged teeth sparkled in the dim light.

Stefan was backing away slowly. "But I never…"

"No, you're right. You didn't. But you did dose your brother with vervain and then put him to bed….in my house. You wanted to be able to leave and he not follow you. But you basically caged a rabid dog in my home." Her voice had grown deeper in her anger. She had risen to all fours and her large body was lowering to a crouch, the electric blue eyes sparkling with her fury. "Nothing we do happens in a vacuum. There are always unintended consequences to deceit and manipulation. You and I overdue for a reckoning, I think. Like you, I'm not feeling forgiving at the moment." Harper was referring to his lack of forgiveness for his own brother. Elijah wanted to laugh.

Horror spread across Stefan's face as he moved as far from the door as he could get, his eyes searching for an exit.

The large cat returned to its haunches. "Go ahead. I'll give you a head start. I like a good hunt. It keeps life interesting." No sooner than the words were out, than Stefan was gone, leaving a powered spray of loose snow rising in his wake.

Damon spoke up, standing for the first time, with Elena's help. "Harper, I know you're pissed. And rightly so, but you can't…."

Harper's great blue eyes focused on him and she tilted her head to the side a bit. "Of course I can." But then she winked one big blue eye at him broadly and was gone, the ground vibrating under her feet as she bounded after Stefan.

Damon turned apologetic eyes on Elena, shrugged and went after them. Even now, he would do what he could to help his brother.

Klaus turned to Elijah, "She won't kill him, will she?"

Elijah smiled, shrugging. "I'm hardly qualified to predict what she'll do. Today proves that." _That was exactly how he liked things._

_Author's note:_

_Have I mentioned I don't like Stefan much? _


	8. Chapter 8

The Guardian, Chapter 8

It had been four months since the day that Elijah had nearly killed Damon Salvatore. Elijah stood at the foot of the stairs waiting for Harper. The two of them were meeting Damon and Elena for a museum opening and some drinks. That four months had passed very quickly for Elijah. He had stayed close to Harper for the longest stretch of time they had ever had together. His brother Klaus was the reason for that.

On their return home that day and a private moment, Elijah had cornered Harper on the subject.

"Have you lost your mind?" He had asked Harper behind the closed door of their room. "What in the world would make you invite him into our home. The only thing that kept you safe here was Klaus'_ lack_ of an invitation."

Harper had met his accusation with a smile and a shrug. "How long would that have lasted? And how long would I have had to live on house arrest? No. I won't live like that." She had stepped into his arms and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Besides, your brother needs us."

"Needs us? Klaus has never needed anything in his life." Elijah had grumbled the words into her dark hair, disarmed by her closeness, as he always was.

"Klaus needs acceptance. He needs family. He needs someone to tell him "no" for a change and mean it." Her arms had tightened around him and the rest of the conversation was lost in their need for one another. Consideration for Klaus' needs had taken a back burner.

Now, as Elijah considered her words, he saw his brother for the first time as she did. He was an angry, abandoned child that had rampaged across time. Harper hoped to help him. Elijah hoped and prayed that determination didn't get her killed. Because it would kill him too. He couldn't live without her now. He just wasn't that strong.

Elijah had been truly surprised when Klaus had taken Harper up on her invitation. Initially he suspected that Klaus stayed because he did want time to find a way to hurt her. That was the main reason that Elijah had stayed so close, watching over her carefully and ready to do real damage to his brother, should violence become necessary.

On that note alone, he and his brother had talked. On the first day, Elijah had told Klaus that he was there strictly on Harper's invitation and that Elijah didn't trust him. He warned his younger brother then that if he tried to hurt Harper, that he would never see Elijah again. Blood ties only went so far and he truly loved Harper. His relationship with her had lasted longer than any other in Elijah's lifetime. Elijah and Harper would disappear, whether she liked it or not, if Klaus found a way to hurt her. Klaus had laughed in his face, a typical Klaus response, but there had been no violence.

Relations between Klaus and Harper had started out as a cold war. The two of them circled each other like wary opponents looking for an opening. That had gone on for a while, until Harper had exploded at Klaus about someone that came to her home for some sort of training a few days a week. Something had happened and she was very angry. Elijah had watched with crossed arms and wide eyes as she told his brother that if she even suspected he would hurt someone else to get at her, she would teach him all about being a jackass first hand. She'd make him a home in the stables as one.

Once the two of them had been drawn to angry words again, a wary peace had settled over their home. Klaus had not left, as Elijah had expected he would. He privately wondered if Klaus found Harper's challenge about finding a way to kill her too attractive to just walk away.

There had been plenty of arguments and raised voices though, between Klaus and Harper since the cold war had ended. Harper called him overindulged, frequently. And to his face. His usual response was a shrug and a smile to that, his attitude implying that this was the way things should be. But Elijah knew that Harper was the first to say such things to Klaus….ever.

There was a rustling sound from the top of the stairs as Elijah was drawn out of his musings. Harper appeared. She wore a black silk sleeveless dress that met at a "V" above her breasts and draped with loose material that hugged her upper body lovingly while it drew tight at her tiny waist only to drape again to reach the floor. The flowing skirt had a single slit over her left knee and she topped it off with tall, black, strappy sandals. Her only jewelry was a small, simple diamond pendant he had bought her a few years ago on a silver chain. Her hair hung loose at her shoulders as he liked it best and she wore a shawl over her shoulders made from a shiny thread that looked silvery in the light. Her eyes asked him if she looked alright, but he couldn't speak. In short, she took his breath away.

All Elijah could do was swallow hard and nod mutely, feeling like a teenaged boy on prom night. That earned him an answering giggle from her. He couldn't help but smile. At least she had no reason to doubt his thoughts and feelings.

She wandered gracefully down the stairs and he watched the silk move lovingly around her small body. His eyes wandered to his watch as he wondered if there was time for what he was thinking. She caught the gesture and giggled again, reading his mind. She stepped in close and kissed him, running a hand over his black suit and black matching shirt with a small hand. The feel of her hands on him didn't help him set aside his idea of taking her back upstairs. Again, she read his mind. She knew him very well.

"We only have a couple of minutes before we're supposed to leave." She was whispering near his ear and his body tensed. Her hands had trailed across his chest and she knew exactly what she was doing to him. _Teasing wretch. _Her mischief made him smile.

He kissed her until she was breathless and forgot herself, just to get even. Then he let her go easily, pretending to be unaffected. "I suppose we should go then." He told her with a small smile and she grumbled at him before her irritation faded into a smile.

They met Damon and Elena at the museum, on the front steps, in Ogden. Damon wore a dark grey suit and Elena wore a black retro dress with a black lace overlay. It had a high, tight bodice and flouncy skirt that reminded him of sixties fashion. Elena's dark hair was pulled back in a tight chignon and her lips shone with a bright red lipstick.

The two of them had decided to stay close by, avoiding Mystic Falls for the moment. After the drama Stefan had stirred, Elijah could understand. Elijah watched the two ladies wander away together to look for the powder room.

Damon stepped a little closer, looking faintly uncomfortable, before he spoke. It appeared he cut to the chase. "How are things going with Klaus under Harper's roof?"

Elijah cut his eyes at Damon and saw that the other man wasn't just making conversation. He appeared genuinely concerned. "No injuries, so far." Elijah answered him, keeping it short and sweet.

Damon seemed to absorb that before he shrugged. "Four months without injuring someone. From Klaus, I guess that's a record." He turned and pretended interest in a painting for a moment before he went on. "I worry about Harper, that's all."

Warming a little to Damon, Elijah nodded. "I agree. I won't be going anywhere while he's here. But she appears to be able to hold her own." Elijah opened the button on his jacket absently and slid a hand in one of the pockets. "This morning they argued together for half an hour about the proper way to make a cup of tea." Elijah smiled at the memory.

Damon joined him in the smile. "She doesn't let him have his way, I suppose."

"Not even close. And still he stays. I don't understand it." Elijah really was baffled on that point.

The ladies found them again and they wandered through the gallery admiring Harper's artist friend's work. The talk was light and playful. After a little mixing and a couple of glasses of champagne, the four of them took the small walk to the river front to watch the lights reflecting off of the water in the warm spring night.

Harper held his hand as they walked together through a fragrant spring garden near the water. She stopped him short tugging lightly on his hand.

"Will you dance with me? We've never danced together, you know." She asked as she ran her hands under his suit coat, snuggling close.

"We have no music, little Harper." His words were a whisper in her hair. He should've seen where this was going, but he didn't.

The first strains of music filled the air around them, blue dust rising on the winds and glistening in the light from the river. Elijah wrapped her close in his arms and they moved together in the darkness to the music that only she could make. Damon and Elena followed their example a few moments later, finding them absorbed in one another. The four of them danced in the darkness and there was magic.

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Elijah sat down his nearly empty coffee cup. He was still at the kitchen table. Harper had an errand at the perimeter of her lands. There had been a storm the night before and she was concerned about some fencing. It had been four days since their night together in Ogden at the museum opening. He wondered idly where Klaus was when he heard the back door jerked open.

Wind blew papers across the room, curtains swayed and Klaus appeared next to him at the table.

"You need to follow me. Now." Klaus' voice when he spoke was harsh and tight. He had opened his mouth and closed it again before he finally spoke. Elijah could see that Klaus' face was white, his blue eyes wild. Before he could gather much more, Klaus was gone, back out the door. Elijah's gut clenched as he pushed away from the table and followed Klaus at equivalent speeds. The two of them covered four miles of wooded Utah wilderness, Elijah two steps behind his younger brother.

They came to a stop along the edge of a field. It was ringed with very old, very large trees and Elijah could see that one of the trees had toppled. He breathed a sigh of relief thinking that they were doing a task together for Harper, removing a tree. Then he noticed the red pain he could make out around the branches of the tree that was easily four hundred years old and very large.

And then he smelled her. Harper's scent filled the field, along with the coppery scent of fresh blood.

His gaze again faded to red as he took his brother by the shoulder, turning him and shaking him with one hand. "What did you do?" He yelled the words, but Klaus' face was even more white. He was shaking his head.

"No, you don't understand. I didn't…" His words trailed off, his hands up and wide in surrender. "She asked for you. Go. There's not much time. Please." Elijah watched his brother's blue eyes fill. That caught his attention. Klaus didn't become emotional.

Elijah moved closer and broke a few branches to reach her. He found the ATV that Harper used turned up on it's side and the tree caging it. Her lower body was pinned by part of the ATV and the tree pinning the rest of her. One branch, the size of a broom stick had punctured her chest. She was on her back, her eyes open and tears leaking from one of them. Her breathing was ragged and shallow. She was looking for him, her dark eyes moving quickly back and forth for the space she could see, her eyes hungry. Then she met his eyes and he thought she sighed in relief.

"I was afraid you would be late for a change." She whispered, smiling a little. She liked to tease him about always being punctual. Time being important to an eternal man seemed ironic to her.

He dropped to his knees in the wet ground next to her, speechless. "I asked him to get you." Her dark eyes met his. His tears wet his hands somehow. They were streaming down his face onto the hands clasped in front of him. He still couldn't process the horror of this thing. "I can't go without saying goodbye." Some fragile part of his mind noted that her blood soaked into the mud around her. It colored his clothes, the grass, the branches of the tree that dug into the ground around her. Her fingers twitched and he took her hand.

"It was my fault. The ground was soft. I got too close and the tree finished falling. He found me. Tried to help…." She drew another ragged breath, "Doesn't hurt. I can't feel anything…." Her gaze swung behind him and he felt Klaus standing close. "Not Klaus' fault." It was a whisper now. She was running out of breath. Her chest rose and fell with each deep labored gasp. The tendons in her neck stood out with the effort of breathing in and out.

"I love you, Elijah. Always." She mouthed the words. She didn't have the breath left to speak.

All he could think was _Please don't go. _But she was going to leave him anyway. And he couldn't blame Klaus. Or anyone. Not even himself. All herpower and influence were useless here against trees and mud and grass. _A season for all things, even death. _The words rang in his heart, _her words_. His eyes filled again until he couldn't even see her face. How could he let her go and not even be able to see her face in these last moments? He wiped angrily at his tears, his eyes hungry for her now, too.

Behind him, Klaus finally spoke, his voice strangled. "I found her this way. I smelled the blood." He swallowed and stooped beside Elijah. "She told me that she had always wanted a brother to fight with and thanked me for being that for her." Elijah met his eyes as a tear trailed down Klaus' cheek.

"Hearts like hers only come along once or twice in a century. If you don't change her, damn it, I will." The strangled words reached Elijah, speaking to his deepest needs and fears. He wanted. But he knew she did not. Elijah opened his mouth, unable to speak. He still held her hand in his and heard the crowing sound of her airway closing, filling with blood. In a smooth move, he made his decision and tore with sharp fangs just below his hand and pushed the pulsing blood from his wrist against her lips. In that moment the last breath left her chest and her hand went limp in his.


	9. Chapter 9

The Guardian

Chapter 9

It was limp now, but Elijah couldn't bear to let go of Harper's hand. If he did, she would be alone. He couldn't abide that. The blood from the wound at his wrist was across her lips, her mouth and down her chin, mixed with her own as the blood had filled her lungs. His blood now also littered the ground, having flowed out and down before the wound closed on its own. It had mixed with hers in a swirl of mud, clay, branches and grass. It was now the only way his blood would mix with hers.

He was too late, too slow. It was fruitless, but he had to try. And the effort of his spilled blood had come to nothing.

Her struggle had ended. The tendons standing out around her neck, a sign of the battle she had fought to breath, had relaxed. Her eyes, wide and dark, were locked on his face but unfocused. Seeing nothing…not anymore. The pupils had become fixed and dilated as the heart stopped. What gave Harper the strength to face every day was lost to the Aether she knew so well. As a woman peels a glove off of her hand to discard it, Harper shed what held her to this place, and him right along with it.

He told himself that she wasn't there anymore, but he still couldn't move. His shoulders shook with silent, tearless, quaking pain.

He heard movement behind him and knew that Klaus was still there, also locked in place with grief. But he felt movement again and heard Klaus speak, his voice tightly strangled.

"Fern. I didn't….." Klaus sounded like he was answering an unspoken accusation before his defense was lost in a strangled, wordless groan. _But they were alone out here._ _Even Harper was gone now._ The name Klaus had used sounded familiar though…..

A whispered feminine voice answered Klaus' distress. "I know you didn't…." The tone of the voice said it had never believed for a moment that Klaus could do such a terrible thing. "The tree called me." The quiet voice declared.

Elijah, still holding Harper's hand, swung around to see who spoke. He found Harper's student, the one that she and Klaus had argued over so angrily months ago standing close to Klaus with a pale, long fingered hand on his shoulder. She was Norah's daughter and she came to Harper's home for help with how to use her craft. Elijah had seen the young woman only a few times, but he had never even heard her speak. Usually when he entered a room, if Fern was there she quietly retreated. She seemed to always keep her head bowed, her hair a dark mahogany curtain that hid her bright green eyes and a very pretty pale, heart shaped face. Harper described her as kind hearted and painfully shy. He had tried once to speak to her and the girl had only flushed, sputtered for and fled the room.

Elijah watched with surprise as the shy young woman, much smaller than Klaus, simply engulfed his brother in warmth, wrapping her arms around him. Elijah's surprise became awe as Klaus lowered his brow to her shoulder. His brother's breathing hitched as he accepted the comfort the small, quiet woman offered.

They stood that way for a few breaths until Klaus stood and pulled away, turning to stare at nothing, perhaps grasping for control. The woman moved and Elijah could see her clearly for the first time. Her green eyes met his and she came to stand beside him, one hand laid tentatively on his shoulder. She wore black jeans and a green sweater. Some distant corner of his mind remembered that she always wore green.

"Even the ground and the tree mourn her." The whispered words were so quiet he almost missed them. He had forgotten. Harper had told him once that Fern was a terra witch. She drew her strength and power from the earth and the life that sprang from it.

Still he didn't move. He had Harper's hand in his and he would sit right here until they buried them together in this spot. He could remove the tree, but not without tearing Harper's small body apart. _So there would be no moving her._ The quaking that had stopped with the distraction of Fern's arrival started again, shaking him in his wordless, soundless pain. The girl's hand didn't move from his shoulder. He felt her stoop down beside him.

"The tree spirit. She wails." Her quiet voice seemed to echo the pain she described. "She calls this a life's blood sacrifice. Harper was trying to help her when the ground gave way." The green eyes filled with tears and overflowed. Fern didn't try to stop the flow, but wore them unashamed. "The spirit was ready to die as the tree around her died. But Harper was not meant to be caught in this." She bowed her head, shaking it sadly as the tears dripped from her chin. "This is wrong."

He thought of Harper's words. "She said there was a season for all things, even death." The words sounded strangled from him.

The liquid green eyes met his. "But _this_ is not Harper's winter." She sounded so certain, her voice growing deep and gaining volume in her conviction. The declaration rang with truth and was tinged with frustration. He watched her eyes wander away from his, seeming distracted as listened to something he couldn't hear as she turned back to Harper's body.

She drew a quiet gasping breath before she turned back to him. Her emerald green eyes were alight with hope and her voice was hoarse with surprise as she said, "The tree spirit agrees. Her last act. She accepts Harper's gift and gives it back to her." With the young woman's quietly spoken words, Elijah realized that the blood staining the ground around both Harper and himself was suddenly gone, no longer coloring the grass or the earth. The branch piercing her chest was gone, and the entire massive tree was reduced to a silvery dust that blew around them on the light breeze.

Elijah was frozen to absolute stillness in his surprise, but Klaus moved around and lifted the wreckage of the ATV off of Harper's body slowly and reverently. He had thought he would sit her with her forever, until they were both dust because he would not mangle her to retrieve her for burial. It both broke his heart and met some of the ache to lift her small form and clasp her to his chest, her head tipped back, still unseeing, now in his arms as he sat, rocking silently back and forth. The tears finally flowed again.

He saw that Klaus and Fern appeared to be arguing. At least that's what it looked like. Fern was gesturing with long, graceful hands and Klaus was shaking his head, his voice quiet but firm. Elijah couldn't tell what they were saying though.

Finally, Klaus approached, his face still drawn in grief. "Fern says we should take Harper home now. She wanted to move her for you, but I told her you wouldn't be letting Harper out of your sight." Elijah met his brother's blue eyes, speaking his appreciation with a silent look that passed between them. _No. He wouldn't be separated from Harper. Not any more than he already was. Not yet. He couldn't bear it._

"Fern says a way will be cleared for us, then." Klaus stood, not looking at Elijah anymore. He tilted his head as he studied Harper's upturned face instead. "You'll want to carry her."

Klaus turned then, without a word and headed for the tree line, expecting Elijah would rise and follow. Klaus was right. Elijah needed to get her home now. In a fluid move, he rose and clasped her body to his chest, her head tucked into his neck and her body draped across him. He smoothed her dark hair reverently and followed Klaus into the trees.

He found that Klaus followed Fern, who moved quickly. She disappeared in one step and reappearing yards away moving into another step, making the movements look fluid and natural. She stopped at the trees and Elijah went still midstride as the trees shifted. They were moving, roots and all if the ripple of the ground under them was any indication, to open a path for Elijah and Harper. Fern stood with her head bowed as he stopped before entering the path the trees had made.

He addressed the girl quietly. "Thank you."

Fern didn't look up or meet his eyes. "Don't thank me. The trees do this for Harper. A life's blood sacrifice is sacred. They honor her. Nothing will grow in the path they make for her again."

He turned quietly and moved into the trees. He moved slowly, fearful he would catch her hair or her clothes on something and do damage. For the four miles to her home, he moved through the cleared path of the trees soundlessly. The wind had stopped, the entire world going still and quiet as they passed. The reverence of the forest was palpable. Even the birds stilled and became silent as they approached. For the time it took to take Harper to her rest, the restless forest was restless no more.

When they reached her home, he took her upstairs to their bedroom and laid her on the bed, joining her there.

He felt Klaus and Fern close by, watching. But no one spoke. There were no words.


	10. Chapter 10

The Guardian, Chapter 10

_**Author's note: I have to start this new chapter with an apology. I've removed the chapters that detail the relationship between Klaus and Fern. I'm sure you've noticed. I have a very good reason. But I am sorry that I have led you down a rabbit hole. **_

_**You see, I've done this poorly. I had intended to explore whatever it was that Klaus and Fern wanted to tell and let it contribute to the whole picture. I had not expected it to become so overpowering and intimate as it did. It began to overshadow the original story, which was about Elijah and Harper. **_

_**Now that I have realized this is a problem, my perfectionist tendencies can't just let it lie. It has become an 800 pound gorilla in the room and I have to fix it. The only way I see to do that is to go back to where the problem started and begin again. That point would be when I switched to Klaus' perspective. This is a pitfall of crafting a story with a broad audience to witness it. I have stepped in a hole while the world is watching. So forgive me while I dust myself off and start again. **_

_**I'm learning the craft of being a writer. A more seasoned pro would've seen the problem before it started and never ventured down this road. Live and learn, I suppose. Incidentally, if you ever need an IV started, an injection, or chest compressions during a heart attack, I'm your girl. You see, in real life, I'm a registered nurse. But writing is a skill I'm building and doing it for an audience is a longstanding dream of mine. **_

_**As for Klaus and Fern, they have a larger story to tell than can be contained here. Klaus is one of the more fierce characters I have taken on. (My own work has one that competes. My editor and my beta reader both despise him, but I fell in love with him just as I have with Klaus.) I believe, after taking the time to really get to know him that Klaus would arrive at being truly vulnerable to someone only after a long battle with himself and the person he loves. I can't see him settling down any time soon or admitting he loves Fern without kicking and screaming all of the way to a peaceful conclusion. He's too independent and scarred to walk into a transforming love with the kind of acceptance that Elijah did with Harper. Like I said, there's just entirely too much going on inside Klaus to be a side story for anyone. Again, I'm very sorry. **_

_**But you should know that all is not lost with Klaus and Fern. The two of them will be featured in a fanfic I will call **__**Fae, Fae Away**__**. I will not be reposting the chapters that I have already written verbatim. I will be adjusting and exploring with them where I had not before. So hopefully, in the end, everybody wins. If you want to be made aware when I post the new story, follow me with the option Follow Author at the end of this chapter and will notify you via email when I have published a new story. **_

_**Again, thank you for reading and bearing with me. I am thankful for all of you and hope you continue to return and enjoy my work. Feel free to lambast me in a review or a PM if the mood strikes you. I screwed up. I'll be a big girl and own it.**_

_**And so, we will go back to Elijah and Harper. I should warn you that there is an adjustment in POV below. After all Harper has faced, I felt I owed it to her to let her have a voice in the telling of her story. I've started with the same information from chapter 10 that was previously posted. Let's go see how little Harper will fare as a new vampire. **_

Hours passed for Elijah like they were minutes. He watched as her small body, always so warm and sweet, grew cold and stiff. He rose and gathered towels to clean her face and her hands. He closed her eyes, unable to bear to watch them grow murky in death. Those eyes had always been so expressive that the thought pained him. He found that moving, busyness helped somehow to postpone the pain a little. So he moved around the room, but never let her out of his sight.

He changed his clothes finally, thinking of himself and his general dirty condition last of all. When that was done and everything put away, he went to stand at the window, turning his back on her quietly for the first time. The sun was setting, a day ending. That seemed appropriate.

He was again at a crossroads. One chapter was ending and another beginning. This time, Elijah was sure he had no strength left for the rest of the story. The rest would tell him what came _after Harper_. Frankly, he didn't care. His story had been long and labored. And he wasn't really sure that the next page held anything he wanted to know about or see. This was a new feeling. For the first time, Elijah wanted nothing more than to just sit down and get lost in stillness. The longing was completely at odds with all he had ever done or felt.

He watched as the dark horizon ahead sliced the sun by degrees and then moved to butcher it completely, consuming it in darkness. But the sun valiantly faced the night, reflecting its rebellion on the sky in spattered patterns of gold, amber and blushing pinks.

As he watched, tears blending into the deep lines of his face, his pained stillness became frozen astonishment as two small arms wrapped around him from behind, a small face pressed into the back of his shirt. The smooth, brown skinned hands met and locked at his waist. This was how they greeted each sunrise and sunset. They had always done it together.

A voice he had not expected to ever hear again, said quietly into his back, "It will be night soon."

He spun in her arms to find her wide eyed and watching him with her head tilted in curiosity to one side. He breathed in the wonder as he pulled her hard up and against his chest. She reached up and wiped his face with both hands as his tears continued to run. _There was always the chance he had lost his mind, but he didn't need the damned thing anyway. _Into her soft, warm hair he tried to speak and choked on his first efforts. After a few deep ragged draws of the perfume of Harper into his lungs, he exhaled the words. "No, I've already faced the night. It's all but come and gone, now."

_Losing her had been his night. Elijah now saw a new dawn in her dark eyes. But none of it made any sense. When it had really mattered, with his world riding on him being on time, he had been too late. They had all been too late. But her dark eyes were now saying something else entirely. Confusion colored his dark eyes as he pushed back to scan her face, her hands, her body, looking for the injuries that had taken her life. There was no sign of any of them. _

Sense or not, she was here. Elijah realized that he could breathe in and out again. He pulled her close, hoping to convince himself and his still blistered heart that she was real and not leaving him alone after all.

There was a fast rumble of steps in the hallway. Wind from the doorway scattered the curtains around them as Klaus came to a stop, his blue eyes wide. He took in the two of them, Elijah and Harper, standing at the window, wrapped in one another in open mouthed awe. Fern also silently appeared just outside the door and the tinkle of her joyful laughter filled the room.

Klaus pulled Fern up off the floor and into his arms, swinging her widely around in mirrored joy, his deep laughter joining hers.

But Elijah had leaned back at their entry and saw first-hand the effect Fern's presence had on Harper. When the young woman stepped into the room, Harper's eyes went wide for a second before her expression melted into a predatory look that forced her eyes to red and lined her face with hunger. Fern was the only human in the room and Harper was now a very new, very hungry vampire.

But Elijah had her in his arms and he wasn't letting go. He tightened his embrace. "Klaus, Fern needs to go." At his harsh tone, Klaus went still with Fern still in his arms and met Harper's eyes. In the next breath the two of them were gone from the room, leaving only Harper and Elijah again.

Harper met his eyes, her brow crinkled with confusion. "What's wrong? I don't understand."

He held her tightly, certain if he let her go, she would regret any damage she might do, and moved toward the mirror on her dresser. He stood, meeting her red eyes in the mirror.

"I don't understand how it's happened, but this is why." Her red eyes filled to overflowing. She covered her face with shaking hands and her body trembled in his arms.

"Oh, no. Please no." She was saying the words over and over quietly as she rocked in his arms.

He had feared this. It was against all she treasured and believed. To her this would be a horror.

Behind them, Klaus spoke again. Elijah had not heard him come back, wrapped up in Harper and her horrified reaction. "This is my fault, little sister. I made Elijah do this. If you will blame anyone, blame me." There was no apology in the statement. Klaus adopted an uncaring and rebellious tone, but when Elijah saw Klaus' expression in the mirror. His blue eyes were rimmed with grief. For reasons Elijah had not yet grasped, Klaus was attempting to deflect any fault in Harper's eyes away from Elijah and onto himself. _A selfless act. From Klaus? Really?_

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Harper turned slowly on Klaus. Her hands were shaking. Her whole body throbbed, as if she had somehow swallowed a whirlwind and it was ripping and tearing at her from the inside, trying to find freedom again from the confines of her skin. There was a deep roaring in her ears, the whirlwind's echo, maybe. Beyond the roar, she heard Klaus' words in her mind, echoing. _My fault. My fault._ Over and over they rang. His handsome face looked pale and pinched. His chin was up and to one side, as if he was braced for a blow. He was watching her with narrow, red rimmed eyes. It was the eyes that got her. Even with the pain and the horror she was facing at the moment, she remembered the tears in his eyes when she admitted with what little breath she had left that he was important to her.

"Can you let me down now?" Her voice came out sounding small and childish. It also sounded hollow and pained.

Elijah was trying to tell her something. It sounded like a mumble. His words didn't penetrate the roar. She just looked up at him and nodded, hoping he would know she was alright. Elijah opened his arms after searching her eyes for a moment.

On unsteady legs, she closed the distance between herself and Klaus. His eyes narrowed further, he stood a little taller when she stopped in front of him.

She waited for him to meet her eyes and asked her question. "Why?" The horror was seeping through. Her usually soft voice sounded deep and rumbled a little.

Klaus didn't answer. His lips stretched a little thinner, into a broader white line, his jaw clenched. He was still braced against her reaction. Elijah touched her shoulder from behind, but she shrugged him off, focused instead on his brother at the moment. Something in her understood that Klaus was somehow fragile at the moment and she would answer this before she went any further.

"I can't blame you. Or Elijah either." She heard a rush of air leave Klaus at her soft words. She had raised a hand between the two of them. "Whatever you did, you were both trying to help me, save me." She stared at her hand until it blurred away with her tears. The blue aura she had lived with from childhood was just gone. The power that licked under her skin, making her who she was; it was lost as her life had been lost. These two men that she cared about had given her a new life, and taken what made her life her own in one fell swoop. _But she couldn't blame either of them for caring, for giving. That would be wrong._

She raised her plain, ordinary hand to Klaus' cheek and looked him squarely in the eyes. "Brother." She choked getting the word out, but she meant it. His blue eyes misted as they moved over her face and he wrapped a single arm around her shoulders.

Harper didn't have any family to speak of. From the time she was a child, she had been alone. To compensate, Harper made a habit of collecting family of her own choosing along the way. Rather than hurting after what she couldn't have, she embraced the chance she was given to choose. Others loved their family because it was an obligation, bound by blood. Harper's bonds ran deeper, binding hearts together. The bonds she made were also life-long. She grimaced as it occurred to her that that label meant more now than she had ever imagined.

Somewhere along the way, while she had waited for Klaus to strike out at her, she had come to care. The trust he had built with Fern, who was always so wary of strangers, had been the beginning. Now when she insulted him, or took his insults, there was always a smile she had to hide. And the strike she had expected Klaus to deliver never came.

Into Klaus' shoulder, Harper spoke again. "Would you consider fetching one of those "disgusting" blood bags?" He was always complaining about the food and accommodations, how all it was well below his standards. He liked to call her home "Harper's Halfway to Hell House". He held her a little tighter for a second and she felt him shake with a quiet laugh before he released her and was gone.

Harper turned, feeling Elijah's eyes weighing her down from behind. He was watching her, his manner uncertain. He raised a hand between them, as if he would touch her, then he lowered it again. Just the gesture broke her already aching heart.

_Her heart._ She was accustomed to the insistent pounding and throbbing in her chest. She took the other plain, ordinary hand and rubbed it across her breastbone. All was still and quiet there. It made her eyes fill. _Where there had been life, there just wasn't anymore._

Her chin drifted to her chest as the tears fell. She stood there all alone for another second before Elijah seemed to unlock and wrap her in his warmth and gentleness.

Into the top of her hair, his deep voice spoke. "I know this will be hard for you." He smoothed a hand over her hair. "Forgive my selfishness, Harper. But I just can't face this life without you."

Harper had to absorb his words as they penetrated the roar in her ears. She had never had to face the possibility of a life without him, not really. There was never a question of whether he would be around for the next sunrise. Seeing it through his eyes for the first time, she did begin to understand him. If she had ever thought for one moment that something might happen to him and that she might be able to stop it, she would've done it without hesitation. Natural or unnatural, no matter the means, she would have preserved his life. He had done the same.

She stepped into his arms completely then, wrapping ordinary hands and arms around the man she had loved for her whole life.

Klaus returned with the blood bags she had asked for, relief in every line of his face. The two of them watched while she drank, letting the rich, sweet coppery liquid answer the pain in her limbs and still the whirlwind under her skin.

There were so many things to consider. Everything had changed. There wasn't a single facet of her life that would not be altered by this. Where her magic and her work had been about life, now death defined her. She would kill, destroy. The people she called family may or may not still love her after this. Some of them were even sworn to kill those who were like her now. They objected to Elijah on principle, but did it silently when she was around. _But she knew._ And now they would object to her, too.

Harper's world, her entire life, was like pieces of a shattered mirror on the floor. It still reflected bits and pieces of her, but the big picture was lost. And she had no idea how she was going to reassemble it. She didn't know what her world was going to look like when she fit the pieces of the mirror back together, or what she would learn about herself in the new reflection….

_This, Harper had never seen coming. _


	11. Chapter 11

The Guardian, Chapter 11

Harper needed someone to drink. That was how she thought of it now. She was standing in her kitchen with a blood bag in her hands and fighting down the shame of what she had become. She took it from a bag, but she couldn't help but think of the person this blood had come from. Thinking of it as a protein shake didn't help. This was her life now. The hunger drove her. _The need for blood defined her in ways that made her feel naked and ashamed. _

Elijah was the picture of supportive. He was there with her every time she was driven to the refrigerator for another bag. He was leaned against the marble countertop watching her try to gather the strength to push the shame aside. Every time she came here, he sat quietly with her, sometimes watching, sometimes not. His beauty, now that her eyes were adjusting and seeing things with the width and depth of a vampire, was blinding. Things were more detailed, more real in ways she had difficulty defining when she looked at them through the eyes of death.

She had discovered, entirely by accident, on the first night that she was somehow immune to the sun. Harper had wandered out to the garden. Her azaleas were in bloom and the scent on the air was nearly strong enough to knock her down. She had never even noticed the scent of her azaleas before. On her way out the back door she had wanted to stop and ask Elijah how he could stand all the scents coming at him at once, for so long. But she forgot to ask. She was distracted by the sweet perfume of the soft flowers she had always loved so much.

The night's dew had left a layer of moisture over the leaves and flowers, leaving a trail across the grass and bushes like an artist with a broad paint brush making wide strokes. She wandered right into her flower bed and stooped, wrapping her arms around her knees and balancing on her heels to examine the blooms and the picture they made. A single blushing pink azalea was opened wide and the dew had gathered to make what appeared to be teardrops on the petals. Fancifully she imagined that the azalea wept as the sunrise approached, knowing its days were numbered. The moment froze for her.

She forgot time in the stillness. As the first strains of the sunrise peeked over the mountain, it cast a broad shadow that made the light appear to be aimed right at her, like a weapon at an intruder. Watching the light dance off of the azalea's tears took her breath away and she completely forgot to be afraid of the sun.

As the first beams touched her skin, Elijah appeared, snatching her up, block the sunlight, as the weapon it was, from reaching her. He always protected her. She knew now that he always would. She gasped in surprise, seeing the risk and put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself because he had lifted her bodily off the ground and was headed back to the house. But when the sunlight hit the hand on his shoulder, rather than the blistering crackle she expected, she felt nothing but warmth from the sun.

"Wait!" Harper gasped the word into his cheek, her nose pressed there in his hurry. "Look!"

Elijah skidded to a halt. She wiggled her fingers, showing him what she meant. The light danced on her fingers and nothing happened. His brown eyes widened in wonder.

Again, Harper lost track of what she was doing. With her new unnatural sight , she saw that his eyes weren't just brown like she had thought for nearly fifty years. Those beautiful eyes had golden flecks that danced around when he was surprised and whenever they met hers. If she looked very closely, she could see the golden globes of light in his explode and spread. What had always been just brown eyes became rich golden brown eyes that reminded her of deeply polished wood.

He chuckled at her, bringing her back to reality and making her realize she had forgotten all about the sun, seeing nothing but the shifting color of his eyes. She grinned, sheepish and the two of them explored her unexpected immunity to the sun.

Elijah had a theory. He believed that it was possible that since he did not use his blood to change others very often, that the effects were somehow concentrated when it did happen. Klaus, on the other hand, had spread immortality across the centuries like a virus. Because it happened so often and there were so many, the people Klaus changed were ordinary vampires. Elijah had only changed her and one other, which was centuries ago. The first had proven to have exceptional abilities. Now it appeared that Harper would also fall into that category.

So she did what she had to do. Elijah would watch, still and quiet, while she did. He was there and supportive, but by the end of the second day, Harper noticed something troubling about her transformation. He would stand, or sit, waiting quietly for her hunger to be answered. But while he watched her drink, she suddenly went blind in a vortex of pain so strong and so wild that it brought filled her eyes with tears without warning.

The first time it happened, she was driven to her knees, spilling the blood across her kitchen floor. She was overtaken by emotions so strong she couldn't stand in the face of them. She ended up sunk face down onto the tiles rattling with bone deep sobs. Elijah was there to pick her up, but the out of control feeling, the raging mournful emotions, didn't abate for a very long time. He held her through it all, rocking her and never saying a word.

The next time she tried to feed, he was there again. And it happened again. The raging emotional pain was nearly more than she could bear. Although it was at its worst when she tried to feed, she began to realize that the vortex of uncontrollable emotion seemed to lurk around every corner of her home. It was waiting to pounce if she held still for too long.

By the third time it happened, Harper began to believe she understood what was happening. It terrified her. But she knew she had little choice about what she had to do. She had become an emotional wreck and she was starving. Under any circumstances, a starving vampire was a dangerous thing.

At the end of her third day of her new life, Harper was stuffing clothing into a bag in her room as quietly as she could. Elijah and Klaus were downstairs making plans together. She didn't even stop to listen to what they were deciding. While they were together to distract one another, she knew she had to take the opportunity their preoccupation offered.

Her new abilities allowed her to move more quickly and quietly than she ever would've imagined. She headed silently out the back with a bag stuffed full of clothes, a supply of food and her keys. She was in her old white farm truck before Elijah caught her, appearing in the driver's side window, knocking with a single knuckle nearly hard enough to break the glass.

"What. Exactly. Are. You. Doing?" He pronounced each word forcefully when she rolled down the window. Harper was blasted with bone shattering anger. _His anger._

She swallowed, forcing the unfamiliar fury she was suddenly feeling aside. "I am leaving." She wanted for it to come out as forcefully as his words had, but she didn't manage it. They were a squeak instead.

The blasting fury changed, shifting and focusing anew like a kaleidoscope image to become pain instead. This was what she had feared and been trying to avoid with her stealthy exit. She didn't want to cause him pain, or herself pain in the process. It stole her breath as anguish swept over her. Tears rose to her eyes and filled them until she was nearly blinded again. She couldn't tell where her pain ended and where his began anymore.

By contrast, Elijah's expression never changed. By no flicker or twinge did his face show any emotion at all.

She choked, swallowed and pushed aside the painful emotions with all of her might. "I will come back. But I have to go right now." She forced her eyes to the hands she had resting on the wide steering wheel. "I don't want to hurt you." But she knew that she was hurting him. She could feel it. Agony rolled out of him like a storm down the mountain, gaining speed with its descent.

_Harper knew what Elijah was feeling because, to her horror, her transition to vampirism had made her a powerful empath. _

When a human became a vampire, their strongest characteristic became amplified. Empathy was Harper's defining trait. She loved openly, broadly and that love allowed her to understand what others needed and made her willing to answer those needs. Now, as a vampire, she was experiencing the powerful emotions that Elijah kept hidden under his dignified guise. It was too much. What he was feeling, and unconsciously forcing on her, was too agonizing for her to face with her own chaotic emotions as a new vampire to factor in. She had to get away and learn to cope with this new ability or she would drown in it.

Harper had considered and cast aside the idea of explaining what was happening. If she told him what he was putting her through then she would be swamped with his answering guilt. Right now all she could think about was escape. Distance was the only way she could see to stop the pain. She loved him; but right now anguish made her desperate. She couldn't get away from Elijah fast enough.

Elijah lowered his hand from the door of the truck, drawing back as his anguish honed its edge, becoming sharper and better aimed unconsciously at Harper. Before he could blink, she started the truck and was backing away. She couldn't explain and she couldn't stay.

Out the window she called, her voice tight, and tears beginning to roll, "Please don't look for me."

It was only her third day as a vampire and Harper ran from the man she loved like the devil himself was on her heels.


	12. Chapter 12

The Guardian, Chapter 12

Harper sat on filthy hay covered floor of the half fallen barn she had found by chance. She had run until she found absolute silence and stillness. The truck had died along the way somewhere around southern Idaho. Harper had kept going, uncaring about which direction she went as long as it was away….away from everyone.

She had seen more than her share of trials and pain. _But she had never faced anything like this._ It wasn't just Elijah. Anyone could blast her with their hopes, pain or joy and leave her disoriented and reeling. She had no idea how to stop it, block it or deal with it. Her own emotions as a newly transitioned vampire should've been what she was working to manage at this point, but she couldn't even find them.

The cashier at the first gas station she found was anxious about something. The resulting blast of turmoil had Harper shaking from head to toe before she could pump a tank full of gas and run for her life. Fortunately she had already downed a blood bag before she got there, or the frustration she felt would've been enough for her to just kill him just to make it stop.

The girl on the street corner who met Harper's eyes while she waited for a red light was furious. Why, Harper had no clue, but Harper was barraged with fury and pain, gripping the wide steering wheel with white knuckles while images of death and destruction danced behind her eyelids.

Everywhere she looked, strong emotions trailed her, chasing her down like devil dogs, bent on destruction. The only peace she could find was in isolation. Or she would go mad. And even there, she knew her own chaotic brew of feelings would rise up to meet her.

In the cricket's song from outside the barn she found refuge in for the night, Harper heard his name. She ached for him. Her whole life had been devoted to Elijah, and now she couldn't stand to be in the same room with him. if she could stand, it would've taken her legs right out from under her. What if there was no answer? What if she would never be able to be with people again? It seemed to her that to live forever and be forever alone was worse than any death sentence she had ever imagined. She'd rather go back to that field and the tree that had crushed her alive.

She was hollowed out, empty. Harper covered her face with her hands as her heart was actually able to force out more tears. It would seem there would be an end to them, a limit of some kind. But she evidently hadn't found the end of them yet. At least this time, they were for her pain, though. _That was a refreshing change._

The next morning Harper scoped out the area and found that the area she had stopped in for the night was isolated and empty for a ten mile radius. That explained why she wasn't feeling anyone else's chaos. So she knew now where to find peace, and how. She tried to remind herself that this was a good step in the right direction.

She swallowed hard against the knot in her throat. An image of Elijah's impassive face, with turmoil raging under the surface, haunted her.

She wondered as she pushed down the pain, what he must be thinking. Did he think she had lost her mind? Was he wondering if her promise not to blame anyone was a lie? What had been going through his mind as he watched her eat that had filled him with so much pain that she had been reduced to sobs in the face of it? And how did he contain those emotions and never betray by even a flicker what he was feeling?

Harper had to resolve not to think about him. She would never understand him anyway. Just pondering had tears rolling down her face again. _Tasks. She had to focus on tasks._

Her next goal was to find food. The supplies she brought with her were long gone. Now she had little choice in the matter. She would have to hunt. That meant she would have to deal with people and their emotional baggage first hand to feed. Maybe in controlled amounts, she could deal with what was happening and manage not to lose her mind. The alternative was to starve to death, and that held no appeal at all.

She found a small diner. It was isolated and it would have to do. There were several tractor trailers parked outside it. She could feel a cornucopia of emotions radiating from the building. For that reason alone, Harper would wait outside.

Groups of people exited and Harper stayed where she was, concealed behind a dark green dumpster. When a single man moved out the door and headed for his truck, Harper moved very quickly and quietly to step into his path. From where she stood, the windows of the diner would not provide a view of what was happening. Good.

Harper erected a mental barrier as best she could against any powerful emotions. The driver had dark hair and kind blue eyes. He wore blue jeans and plaid. Around her makeshift mental barrier, Harper mentally reached out and tasted the air around the man. The tall lean stranger felt only mild curiosity and strong satisfaction, probably with the breakfast he had just finished. He smiled when he came to a stop to find her standing near the driver's side door.

"Hi honey. What can I do for you?" He had a deep voice and a distinctly thick southern accent.

She took a step closer, braced against a blast of anything. Nothing happened. "I'm hungry." She answered, because he seemed to be waiting for something. Her clothes, black jeans and a black blouse, were dusty and she had looked better, but her appearance didn't seem to alarm the man. A smile spread across her face as he reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. He was going to offer her money to buy food. A nice person. Go figure. Just her luck. Her first victim _would _have to be a nice guy….just what she needed. More guilt.

She touched his arm, bringing his gaze up to meet hers and she met his eyes. She had seen Elijah do this only a time or two. She focused on his eyes and pushed a bit. His face went slack for a second and drifted into a sweet smile.

_Ok….now what?_ She was thinking. Harper had his attention, now what did she do?

"What's your name?" She asked him.

He blinked for a second before he said, "Quinn."

"Quinn, this won't hurt." She told him as she moved in close, pressing him gently against the door and sinking her fangs swiftly into his tanned throat.

"Doesn't hurt." He told her dreamily as she drank.

Harper was in fact barraged by emotion, but it was hers. A deep abiding peace settled over her as she sank into Quinn's heartbeat. A sweet and warm oasis of ecstasy met her when her eyes drifted closed. She nearly forgot to stop, it was so wonderful. Gasping, she pulled away to find Quinn pale, but still breathing and still conscious. She wiped her face with one hand and pressed the other to his throat to stop the bleeding.

Quinn grinned a little drunkenly. "That was nice." He whispered weakly, a pale blush rising to his rugged face.

Harper smiled and put a finger over her lips, signaling that he should be quiet. "You should be more careful. You've cut yourself." She told him, pointing to his throat. "You never saw me. It's time to go. And thank you, Quinn."

Quinn smiled and waved, holding his throat with one hand and climbing up into his truck with the other.

_Her first successful hunt._ The feeling of accomplishment was wonderful. She had thought awful things about Klaus when he complained about drinking from bags and said he preferred it from the vein. But now she had to admit that he had a point. The blood, connected to life, was so much more appealing than a plastic bag with preservatives to ruin the taste. She was also thrilled with herself and that she hadn't actually hurt Quinn. Harper could see how easy it would be, though, to forget herself and lose control. She would have to be careful…..very, very careful. Killing was not something she was ever going to be comfortable with.

At the moment, she had independently met her most basic need and she was thrilled with herself. Maybe this wasn't going to be a nightmare like she had expected.

The barrier she had erected against Quinn's emotions had actually worked. Harper was astounded. Years ago she had talked Fern through the process when the girl complained early on that all of the tree spirits were trying to talk to her at once. As an Earth witch, Fern dealt with such things and Harper had researched, having never dealt with that particular problem for herself. The lessons she had given Fern had echoed in her memory, supplying her with the instinctive barrier that she could hide behind. The technique might be the only way for her to ever be able to tolerate others and their emotional chaos as a new empath.

She moved quickly and quietly back toward the trees, heading in the direction of her makeshift camp in the barn. Getting used to being able to move so fast was going to be a task in itself. She stopped and started several times, amazed at the speeds she could reach without ever getting out of breath. The powerful feeling was heady. Another thing she would have to explore would be her strength and this new pace of her life. Really, any task could hold her attention as long as she didn't let herself think about Elijah.

If she did think of him, his face, his tenderness, the way he looked at her when they made love….the ache would set in again, bringing her to her knees.

For ten days Harper lived in the barn and fed off of the customers at the diner as they left. She was very careful and managed not to cause more harm than a bandage could cover. The sense of accomplishment faded and she picked up a knack for dodging unpleasant emotions along the way. She could see them coming now, or taste them on the air maybe. The sensation seemed to take up all of her senses, actually, making it difficult to describe. Her proficiency with her new gifts didn't give her the courage, though, to go home. She tried. More than once she packed up her small camp and started off, only to allow herself to become distracted by a ring of toadstools along the way, or some wildflowers. Any excuse to postpone her return was good enough to stop her in her tracks. To be completely honest, she was terrified to face everyone, especially Elijah.

How could she look people she loved in the eyes and say "being around you hurts me"? She ran the conversation over in her head a thousand times and it never ended well. So Harper spent her days and nights wallowing in her cowardice.

On the eleventh day, as Harper was again packing up her camp, she sensed the approach of powerful emotions on the air. Whoever it was, the emotions they were carrying were so strong it made the air around the place vibrate. Harper felt like her insides were shaking with the percussive strikes of the drum of pain, love, frustration and longing that beat in her brain, down her spine and across her tongue. Her head throbbed, keeping time with the beat as it got stronger and closer.

By the time she actually saw Elijah, her eyes were half closed with the pain in her head. She had sat quietly on the roots of an ancient oak tree to wait for him and that was where he found her.

He crossed his arms when he came to a stop ten yards from where she sat. His face was drawn and tight, making his features look aquiline in the afternoon sun. He wore a dark grey suit, the sleeves pushed up toward his elbows and the shirt underneath folded up. That meant he was ready for anything. She had seen him this way before.

She kept her eyes on the ground a few yards from him, the barrier up and ready, but proving a little hard for her to maintain. She could see the emotions as they flew past her like arrows gone astray and missing their mark.

He seemed to be waiting for her to speak, but she couldn't. She just sat in the shade and waited. Finally, as frustration aimed and struck her mental barrier, he spoke.

"Of all the places I have imagined I would find you in the last few days, this doesn't even come close." His voice, like his face and his posture, was tight. It sounded hoarse and raspy like he hadn't used it for far too long.

She swung her gaze further away, up and behind him at nothing. "What did you expect?" Her rasp matched his.

Anguish from him exploded against the barrier like a grenade, rocking it, and her, with the impact. Harper blinked hard, and held her ground.

He kicked at a log with the end of his shoe with false idleness, his eyes narrowing in the sun. "Oh, I don't know…..a nightclub? A hotel? Maybe a loft….but wherever it would be, I expected it to be like your home and filled with people." He swung his arm wide. "But I find you here, in the wilderness and alone."

More agony barreled past the barrier as Harper hunkered down further mentally, bracing. He went on, centering his gaze on her again, his golden brown eyes hard and his voice hoarse but calm. "Am I to assume it's not just my presence you find so repugnant? Is it not just me, but everyone you would prefer to avoid in your current state? Is what I am….and what you are now….really so _despicable _to you?" His question sounded so casual that she would've never known, if not for her new abilities, the kind of toll it cost him to ask it.

Seeing the pain she had caused brought her up short. Casting aside any sense of self preservation, she moved to within a breath of him, looking up sharply into his eyes.

"I love you, Elijah. Everything else might change. That will not." For once the words came out just as she intended, firm and reassuring. She put all she felt into the declaration and the golden brown eyes that met hers filled with liquid emotion making her mirror the tears back at him. She braved the soulful torrent rushing out of him like a man struggling down a wind tunnel against a gale. Wrapping her arms around him, she felt his chest hitch with his breathing.

Into her hair, he whispered brokenly, "God, Harper. Are you _trying_ to kill me?"


	13. Chapter 13

The Guardian, Chapter 13

_**Author's Note: Lemon warning- adult situations. Explicit scenes ahead, so brace yourself. If you're underage, cover your eyes already….. **_

_Harper had quite literally lived and died loving Elijah_. How could he ever doubt…..even for a moment? Pushing aside everything else, she pressed closer, moving her hands across his broad chest under the suit jacket. She was more a woman of reason than passion, but for once Harper let her heart lead. She sank a hand into the back of his soft hair, pulling him down sharply with her new strength and pressing slow, warm, wet kisses to his lips, his eyes, his cheeks. She ran one hand gently across his face, wiping away the scattered silvery tears and pressing her lips to where the moisture had been, replacing his pain with her love.

Her reward was a soft, ragged sigh from deep in his chest. Vulnerability filled the air around them, seeping out of him slowly. He was raw, wide open and aching. And she would be his remedy…with all of her heart.

For a moment, his eyes drifted closed and he went very still while he seemed to soak in the feel of her hands and her lips. When he finally moved, strong hands and arms snatched her roughly up off the grass and flush against his chest, which was exactly where she wanted to be anyway. She brought her legs up and around his waist where they met and locked behind him.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she sank into his mouth. Distantly she noticed that his faced was rough and unshaven. Unusual and out of character.

He was tight, passion becoming tension that lined his shoulders, his back and his entire body. Like a bowstring drawn taut and plucked, passion became the single humming note that defined him. She could hear his breathing beginning to rattle out of him. He backed her up against the tree she had been waiting for him under and the rough bark bit into her back…..and she didn't care.

She leaned down, near his ear and realized her own breath had become loud gasps too. Harper swallowed hard and breathed into his ear. "I need you." She had unlocked her legs around his waist when her back came up against the tree. Now she moved against him in a sliding, questing gesture as old as time.

Elijah's taut body locked against her and shook loose a breath later on a shudder of answering need.

This was their first time together since her transition and Harper began to see that he had treated her like spun glass when they made love in the past. This was very different. All caution was set aside in the face of this passion, and she could meet him on equal ground. The two of them moved roughly together, moving in silent agreement toward the soft grass under the tree.

She had tugged at his jacket, pushing it off of his shoulders carelessly. Questing hands had pulled his shirt loose and gotten entangled in the feel of smooth muscle and bone under it. A low groan tore from him and he palmed a breast through her blouse, causing her to answer him with a groan of her own. His shaking hands became impatient with the buttons of her blouse and finally just pulled, sending buttons flying in all directions and making her laugh. He didn't smile. His face was still pale and intense, his dark eyes even darker, as they moved over her expression. She put all she felt into the look she gave him. A mixture of love and territorial satisfaction thrummed up at her from behind his eyes. He made himself busy running his hands along her skin, over her body, making her think she might burn up in his heat as she never had in the sun.

In a few deft movements his clothes and hers were stripped away. He lowered to the ground and pulled her down on top of him. Sitting up, he moved her across his thighs and brought her body slowly down onto him, for all intents and purposes impaling her there across his lap. The two of them were joined by their mutual passion and he pulsed inside her. But he had gone very still. And he wrapped his arms around her, holding her still against him as well. The two of them were locked together in unquenched need and he did not move, or allow her to move against him.

She ran hands over his back, across his shoulders and throat, pressing kisses where she could reach. Harper needed this, needed him. His ragged breathing deepened and escalated, but still they were fused together in stillness.

He pushed his face into her hair. He spoke brokenly against her skin, sounding like he was forcing the words out around a knot in his throat. "You will not leave me again." The words were a command. Before, his tone would've made her angry enough to fight him. But everything had changed. Harper understood what was under the words as she never had before. More of his agony had bubbled to the surface. It took her breath and had her gasping at the pain. To him it must've sounded like the beginning of the answering argument, because he pulled her tighter against him, his spine straightening and his voice deepening with urgency. "I will not allow it, Harper."

He moved then, or rather he moved her against him. Her body slid over his, leaving her trembling with desire and need. An answering moan escaped her. "Promise me." He said when he stopped again.

She was desperate now and that was just what he intended. Blackmail. He evidently thought the only influence he had left over her was sex, and he was using it ruthlessly.

"I love you, Elijah." This time her declaration came out pained and defensive. The power of those beautiful words was lost in distrust.

"Promise me, Harper." His eyes were hard. _He didn't believe her._ He wanted her word that she would never leave him again, but he didn't trust her anymore. What good would a promise be now?

But she gave it to him. Because he needed it and she needed him. "I promise, Elijah."

He rolled her over and sank into a rhythm that the two of them had danced together a thousand times. This time it was different. What had always been open and beautiful just wasn't anymore. His big body shuddered and Harper fought back tears as their mutual passion emptied them both.

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Harper moved woodenly around the barn, busying herself with tasks again. Frustration and a painfully hopeless sensation blew across the barn at her from Elijah like a sharp winter wind. He was waiting for her to get everything packed so that they could leave this place. As always, his face gave no clue to the pain he was in. If not for her barrier to protect her, she would've been driven to her knees under it, but he gave no hint of what he felt.

He no longer believed her. The thrust of that made her eyes burn. She didn't understand anything anymore. It appeared that Elijah had believed she had never intended to return. The undercurrent of what was happening here was thick with pain and questions for her. Somehow she had arrived at the understanding that he had expected her to reject him. The relief she had tasted on the air around him was not for her claim to love him, but for the fact that she hadn't run and didn't appear to intend to….for now.

This new ability of hers helped in some ways and hindered in others. She felt the layers of emotion that drove him from behind the barrier she kept erected, but had no grasp of what they meant. And he didn't do anything she expected anymore. He hadn't even questioned why she had felt the need to leave. She had thought that a demand for answers would be the first thing he did when the initial surprise of his arrival wore off. But he never asked. She could only conclude that he thought he already knew the answer to that question. Elijah stood quietly, arms crossed, watching her move around the barn gathering her things and never saying a word. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth a white line and his shoulders tight. She felt like an enemy prisoner. His eyes followed every gesture and step she made with his eyes as if he expected her to bolt for the door at any moment and he was prepared to give chase.

Her considerate Elijah, who had always made her feel treasured and loved had become a distant and ruthless prison guard. And despite the pain she was so aware that rolled out of him, _Harper understood nothing_.

There was a decision to make. She could try to explain, tell him about what had been amplified in her transition and the resulting turmoil. She could try to make him understand why she had needed isolation so much. The truth was always the best option, Harper firmly believed that. But a small, very hurt and very angry corner of her heart whispered that if he no longer trusted her, perhaps he didn't deserve her trust anymore, either.

Throwing her pack over her back, she looked back at him and said, "Let's do this." Hopelessness rang in the syllables. His dark eyes hard, he nodded and followed, never letting her out of his sight.

Somehow the two of them had become locked together in mistrust.


	14. Chapter 14

The Guardian, Chapter 14

Klaus met Elijah at the door, up in his face and cursing. "I don't _bloody well_ know what you were thinking! You knew this could happen and you _let her walk away!_ We will _never _find her now! You unfeeling bastard!" He threw a single hand in the air in a gesture of frustration as Harper stepped into his line of sight and into the house behind Elijah making Klaus' face go slack in surprise.

A thrust of frustration and warmth swung past her barrier. The emotions were powerful from Klaus, but not blinding the way Elijah's could be. She was beginning to understand the concept of feelings being amplified in vampires. Even this relatively small reaction from Klaus was powerful enough to blow away anything she had ever picked up from the humans she hunted at the diner. It gave her hope that she would adjust. It was possible that those first twitches of power she felt, sobbing on the blood covered floor with Elijah had been a worst case scenario and not something she might have to face for the rest of eternity.

Rather than turn his fury on her, since she seemed to be the subject, Klaus instead stepped in and wrapped strong arms around her. He pulled her into a moment of warmth like she had never shared with him, and Harper lost all control. She was submerged in brotherly concern and her eyes burned as she pressed her face into his shoulder and the rippling sobs started. She would wonder later at how bravely he held out in the face of a woman's tears, but to his credit, Klaus held her tightly there at the back door and let her cry herself dry. He even dismissed Elijah somewhere along the way with a gesture and an angry mumble of "Leave her alone already, I've got this".

Harper didn't have a clue what they both believed Elijah had done wrong, but guilt splashed around the room like water in a bottle as Elijah left.

When she grew still and quiet again, Klaus leaned back and wiped the tears from her face with one hand, pushing her hair away. "It'll be alright now, love. I promise." His blue eyes were concerned as they moved over her face. "Do you have any idea how many you killed, sweetheart?"

Harper grew still, looking up sharply to meet his eyes. "None." But Klaus' expression was dubious. "No, really. I was very careful every time I hunted. Just enough and I let them go."

"With no one to teach you?" He shook his head, still not believing his ears. "It's not your fault, Harper. No one will blame you." His eyes strayed in the direction Elijah had disappeared as his jaw clenched.

"Really, Klaus. I didn't kill anyone." She had to make him believe. She didn't know why it mattered so much, but it did.

He hugged her again, saying into the top of her head, "Then you are amazing, little sister. Most of us leave a trail of bodies in the first few days and weeks."

"I didn't. I promise."

He nodded, accepting her word as final on the subject. _Harper found Klaus' acceptance of her word as truth both refreshing and ironic considering his brother didn't believe a word she said. _

"You will not have to learn anything else the hard way, love, I promise you that." His blue eyes swept her face, assuring her with a look that she could count on him.

Harper found a valuable and unlikely ally in Klaus.

Things weren't so easy with Elijah.

Again, he was a quiet presence radiating pain in all directions in every room she entered, and trailing behind her as she moved from place to place. At night she went to bed alone and woke with him lying beside her, but not touching.

On the third night she found him propped on one elbow, watching her sleep. The weight of his gaze had woken her. When her eyes opened, he moved close and took her lips in a searing kiss.

Gathering her pride around her like a shield, she said, "You already have your promise. There's no reason now for you to touch me." If only the words sounded as confident coming out of her mouth as they had roaming around in her head.

He laughed without humor, and Harper thought she actually _saw_ the pain in his eyes as another grenade was lobbed at her barrier, rocking its foundations and making her teeth rattle. "I say there is every reason." He told her before he pulled her down into a deep pool of desire, making love to her and making her forget completely that love wasn't something they spoke about anymore.

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Harper had begun to move through the facets of her life with a jeweler's eye, rounding edges and trimming where it was necessary in light of the changes she had undergone. Her livestock was the first problem she set about fixing. The animals didn't allow Elijah near them and never had. The horses and cattle sensed a predator when vampires were near and they responded to her the same way now.

She felt she had to try. It reduced her yet again to tears, but she had to see her favorite horse one last time. And he had been confused and terrified of her. Even Fern, who could communicate with animals of every kind, was unable to reach him in his eye rolling terror.

She began to sell off her beloved livestock then, with little choice in the matter. They wouldn't let her care for them anymore. Every time she signed a bill of sale and watched a trailer of her stock roll away she went quietly into her room and cried bitter tears.

After a week of this, Elijah spoke. He had become the wordless fixture in every corner of her home. Now he was wordlessly watching her gathering the information in her office, at the desk for putting the farm up for sale once and for all. If only she could bring herself to forget he was there. "You are completely dismantling your life here." It was a casual statement, but there were deep undercurrents here that made her skin prickle.

"I am." Harper loved people, and loved to talk. But Elijah had reduced her to syllables.

"Why, exactly?"

"Because I have little choice and because I don't plan on staying here. Not anymore." She couldn't. Harper could not pretend that nothing had changed.

Elijah moved in close, raising red flags for her as he cocked his head to one side in false curiosity. "So all of this is not enough for you anymore. Is that it?" His eyes were wide, his expression jeering. He had expected this. And he was angry. What did he have to be angry about?

"No. It's not enough anymore. I can't care for the animals. They're afraid of me and won't let me near them. All of the other functions of the farm are dependent on the stock, which I now can't raise. So no. There is no point in pretending this works for me." She had risen to standing, her face inches from his. She was angry, and tired of pushing down what she felt to maintain the silence. "Actually, I'll be honest enough to say that _none of this_ works for me." She gestured at him and he froze.

"I'm not a danger. I think I've proven that I haven't set aside my humanity. I'm not going to lose my mind in the transition. I'm past it. I will not pretend anymore that you standing over me for every breath is okay with me. This can't go on. I'm miserable. You're miserable. What _the hell_ are you waiting for?"

"He's waiting for you to decide _he's_ not enough." Klaus' voice answered the question for Elijah from the doorway. He stepped quietly into the room and Harper's surprise was written all over her.

When she found her voice, she sputtered a denial, but Klaus held up a hand to stop her and went on. Elijah turned hard eyes on his brother, but said nothing. "There's no reason you should know, and so I'll tell you all of it…._because he never will_." Klaus leaned casually against the door frame and crossed his arms. "The transition is a difficult thing. When you've been around as long as Elijah and I have, you notice things. We both avoid changing women we have become involved with as a rule because the sire becomes the enemy once a woman is immortal. What was once a loving relationship becomes a millstone around the neck of a new vampire. They are suddenly itching to see and taste the world. It can take weeks, months, sometimes years, but the sire _always_ ends up becoming the enemy. There just really is no "forever" for romances where a vampire turns a human…..ever." Klaus' tone was kind but matter of fact.

Klaus watched his words sink in as Harper felt herself sinking into her seat. "When you left before, we decided it had happened faster with you than either of us had ever seen. But you had no training, no experience and were likely to become feral on your own. I wanted to drag you back by your hair, but Elijah wanted to give you time. He was hoping, I think, that it would be proven that we were wrong." Harper turned and met Elijah's dark eyes as sharp anguish swept past her from his direction. He met her gaze only for a moment before he trained his eyes determinedly on the floor.

"But you don't understand. That's not why I left, Elijah." She whispered the words and his gaze met hers again, his eyes wide.

"What else is there, Harper? You loved me until practically the moment you were changed, then you couldn't get away from me fast enough." His voice was a wisp of sound.

She took a deep breath and then barreled ahead with the truth before she had time to let herself be afraid. "The transition made me an empath. I was drowning in emotional baggage. At first I felt like I was losing my mind in all of the chaotic emotion in this place."

Both of them filled the room with gasping surprise. Elijah had gone very pale and still. But Klaus began to laugh. Low, rich laughter filled the room gathering strength as it went until he was wiping tears of mirth from his face and gesturing weakly toward Elijah with one hand.

Through his struggle for the air to speak, Klaus just managed to say, "My stoic brother….." Gasp. "in love with…." Gasp, "in love with _a bloody empath_." Cough, choke, sputter. "What is that terrible clique about still waters running deep, Elijah?" Chuckle. "And he ran her out of the bloody house with those _feelings_ he's so damned ashamed of." He was leaning against a wall, holding his stomach as he laughed.

Harper "helped" Klaus into the hallway and shut the door behind him. He stayed in the hallway, his laughter serving as a backdrop for the silence that had fallen between the two of them.

Elijah was staring blindly at the floor. Something like horror and shame were boiling up out of him and pooling on the floor. He had sunk into a seat in the corner as Klaus laughed. He was leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. Harper pushed him back in the chair and sat on his lap, wrapping her arms around him and sinking into a searing kiss.

He froze for a moment before he pulled her closer and deepened the searing kiss to scorching. When she backed away, she didn't get far because his arms came up to stop her. She was fighting for air and control.

Both of them, at the same time, with mirrored expressions of confusion said "Why didn't you tell me?"

Harper tried to shrug in his strong embrace. "I was angry because you didn't trust me."

"I couldn't bring myself to say out loud that I knew you just didn't care for me anymore. Even if it wasn't anyone's fault, I…" His voice broke and Harper framed his face with her hands.

"I don't care what you two have seen in the past. And I sure don't care what "always" happens. I'm anything but usual. I'm fifty years old and I've been with you my whole life. I'm not going to forget how to love you. You will never become a millstone around my neck. Ever." She was looking him squarely in his eyes, promising with everything in her. She made a fist and banged on her chest. "Heart and soul in love, Elijah. Remember?"

He drew a deep, shaky breath before he took her in his arms. "No matter the reason, if you ever leave me again, I'll hunt you down and shake you till your teeth rattle, woman." He shook her by her shoulders a little to illustrate it and she nodded as the tears she was barely keeping contained finally shook loose.

"I'm so sorry. I love you. I really do." She was nodding and crying and promising with her whole heart.

Elijah's love, tenderness and joy rippled around the room, rising like a gentle mist around them while Harper drew in the emotion with deep, relieved breaths, treasuring its flavor.


	15. Chapter 15

The Guardian, Chapter 15

Elijah climbed the ladder into the hayloft. Under normal circumstances, he avoided the barns on Harper's property. But the horses that had feared him were gone now. Sold off. The barns stood empty, a testament to the changes that Harper and her farm had undergone. The place was cleaned out and appeared abandoned. He could relate.

He had felt exactly that way when Harper had disappeared a few days after her accident. Abandoned. In truth, he had been shattered. At the time, watching her drive away, kicking up gravel in her hurry to get away from him, he had felt hollowed out. He had seen very real fear when she looked up at him through that window and it had stolen his will even to breathe.

That look had haunted him for the days and nights that followed. Klaus had been very vocal about all the damage she could do to herself on her own. Over and over Klaus reminded him that she was new and young, but all Elijah could see was that look. He had brushed Klaus' arguments aside and waited, saying that Harper had said she would return and they would wait for her to return. After a week, he had given up. Not a word to anyone from her and he was fighting off her friends insisting on going after her. Even Fern, in her quiet, thin lipped way had demanded that someone go find Harper. She had even run a location spell, one that Harper had taught her, of all things.

Elijah had gone after her with a heavy heart. He knew the fear, the avoidance, the need to run. He had seen all of this before, centuries ago. It had felt like watching the same movie with a new cast. Only he was the same. But this time it had hurt so much more.

He played the scene over and over in his head in the hours it took to find her. She would be with someone. A man. She would tell him that she didn't love him, might've never loved him and that she had what she wanted now. He would kill the man and she would shout accusations at him until he walked away empty handed. This was how it would go. This was how it had gone in the past.

As he travelled, he tried to remind himself that this was Harper. Not that other woman from so long ago. He had learned to trust and rely on Harper. His lynchpin. He had never known a woman like her. He called her "little Harper" because he enjoyed the irony. Yes, she was literally half his size, but with the strength of ten grown men…..and that was _before_ he had changed her.

When he actually found her, she had been alone, bedraggled and desolate looking. The pain he had prepared himself for did not find him. Instead had been a new and more horrible version. He had reduced her to madness. She was alone and wanted to stay that way, away from everyone and everything she had ever loved. By giving her immortality, he had stolen who she was. The guilt and horror had been overwhelming.

But he had been wrong then, too. Harper was an empath, gathering her strength and her abilities around her before she garnered the courage to return to her life. And he had forced a promise from her not to leave him. _Not his most bright and shining moment._

Elijah moved toward the edge of the hayloft that had been swept clean and sat, letting his legs dangle under him. He pushed the sleeves of his light brown shirt up. He had discarded his coat before climbing the ladder. He was learning to do his thinking away from the house. Harper, with her keen eyes and her empathic abilities now saw right through him. That wasn't a sensation he enjoyed. If he was brutally honest, it made him feel naked and exposed.

Klaus was right. Both of them had seen too many relationships destroyed by the transition. He had changed Harper with only one goal in mind, to save her life. Before he had ever opened a vein, he accepted that he would only be getting her back for a little while. The bottom line for him was that he loved her more than he loved himself. Her needs took priority. He still believed, knowing the inevitability of an end, that he would save her life again in a minute. He knew as surely as he drew breath he didn't really need that the day would come that she would leave him.

All things had an end….all things except for Elijah. Endings were natural. Elijah was not.

A small hand rested on his shoulder. He had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed anyone else was close. A second hand trailed along the back of his neck leaving a tingling trail that ran down his spine as his body responded to her. A single touch and he wanted. After thirty years. He knew many marriages didn't last that long. That in itself was remarkable.

He met the hand at his shoulder with one of his own.

"You worry too much." She told him after patting his hand and moving to sit beside him on the loft floor.

He met her eyes and saw pain flicker there. "I'm sorry. Was I flooding you again?" She had explained how emotions from others were uncomfortable at times, but from him they were more powerful and overwhelming. He had hoped that distance would help. Clearly not.

She smiled a little crookedly, her dark eyes troubled. "You washed me right out into the courtyard."

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. "I'm sorry. I thought if I came out here it wouldn't bother you for me to gather my thoughts."

She ran distracted hands over him, nodding solemnly. "It didn't really. I was teasing. Actually I reached out, looking for you. So I guess it's another function of my gift. I can locate you, recognize the tone of your feelings, I suppose." Interesting. The barn he had chosen was actually more than a mile from the farm house. "But I don't like the hopelessness I found, Elijah."

It was his turn to smile crookedly. "I'm a realistic man, little Harper."

"No you're not. You're fatalistic." She argued, one hand falling to her hip as she spoke.

He didn't have an answer for that. He knew it was foolish to hurt now for what had not yet come. But Elijah also knew what living without her felt like. He had done it for nearly a thousand years. He was facing a harsh reality that he would live without her again someday _and it made him feel like a drowning man._

"The only certainty is change, lady." He sounded firm and sure when he said it that way. But the pain of that thought roared through him like a runaway train. He had seen entirely too much change. And he had reached a point, finally, where he wanted _nothing_ to change. And, like his runaway train, it was unstoppable.

She reached out with a small, brown hand and took his. She laced their fingers together and kissed the back of her hand with her soft, dark pink lips. Her dark hair became a curtain as she leaned forward and it smelled like vanilla.

"Then we will face the changes together." She told him with a soft, wary smile. "But if you really think about it, nothing has really changed here, Elijah. We were already beating the odds when we had been lovers for thirty years. There were no guarantees then, either."

Elijah's throat closed. He lifted the hand that was wrapped around her much smaller one. Eyes on the floor that was twenty feet below them, he answered honestly. "I want forever with you, Harper. And you can't promise me that, not really." His voice was hoarse with the weight of his fears.

"You want a guarantee." She noted quietly. He nodded, his chest aching.

"But you of all people know that there are no guarantees." He nodded again, because that was also true.

"It's just as likely that you could get tired of me as the other way around, you know." He looked up sharply to her face. "Some pretty little thing half my age catches your eye and whoosh." She made a sweeping gesture with one hand. "If we're just another statistic, then that's just as likely to happen as anything." She shrugged, but he was shaking his head.

"No. That's not going to happen." He told her, pulling at her by the hands they still had clasped so that she was across his lap. He wrapped both arms around her, needing to be closer.

"How can you know that? Because you promise it? What good are promises against the unknown?" She was watching him closely.

Neither of them could promise the future. He drew a deep breath as that thought occurred to him. Something about it sounded fundamentally wrong. _Could_ they promise the future? His eyes wide, he reached out and took little Harper by both shoulders. Hope had just sprung to new life in his chest.

"Would you marry me, Harper?" He felt breathless as he waited for her answer. He could live with promises. Other people broke promises. Harper didn't and neither did he. One trait they shared was an abiding value in their word once it was spoken. She credited him with teaching her that.

Elijah didn't have a ring. He wasn't even remotely prepared for an engagement. For once in his life, he was moving on impulse.


	16. Chapter 16

The Guardian, Chapter 16

Harper's dark eyes were watching him. She had disappeared into the bathroom and been gone for a very long time. Her quiet call had brought him, wondering what in heaven's name could've gone wrong now. Instead he found her immersed in a sea of bubbles in the bath. The entire room was dark and illuminated with candlelight. The sprays of light danced off her dark hair, pulled up and piled on top of her head carelessly. That same golden light danced in her dark eyes as she lifted a bubble covered hand that still wore her new wedding rings and crooked a single wet, bubble covered finger at him.

Stepping in and closing the door with a deep, quiet smile, some dim corner of Elijah's mind noticed that the entire room was rich with the scent of warm water and gardenias. The gardenias might be the bubble bath she used, or it might be the scent clinging to their clothes from the ceremony only a couple of hours ago.

When he had asked her to be his wife in that dusty hayloft, she had gone so still and quiet in his arms that he had known a moment of real fear. But when her dark eyes met his, he saw the silvery rimming of tears and under those tears such joy that his own joy had risen to meet it. He thought he might've opened his mouth to say something, because she had put a finger over his lips and smiled.

"Hush." She said, with a smile. "Don't ruin it. You didn't plan that, did you? And it means so much more that you didn't." She pressed her cheek to his and said, "I've always been yours, Elijah. But if you want my promises, my life, my future…..of course I'll give you all of that too."

Her words had made his eyes fill. _So generous and so certain._ He had never known a heart like hers. While he was sitting there, holding her and wishing he had a ring to give her, a strain of guilt over what she had become struck him one last time. He would've never dreamed of tying her to him when she had been human. While she her heart had still beat, she had still had a chance of a normal life, children and a family. Now all of that was gone and he felt the cruel thrust of that thought like a blade through his chest.

In his quiet pain, he had completely forgotten about her new gifts. Little Harper saw right thought him. She had wrapped her arms more closely around him, pulling his head down to her chest. She said, "I'm grateful for what you did. _You saved me._ Thank you for not letting me go and for giving us this moment." Her voice was thick with tears and sincerity. His ear pressed to the stillness of her chest, he was able to let go of the guilt that had been his companion since she had risen again. Holding her close, soon to be his wife, he had embraced joy.

A few weeks later they had met in the presence of her friends and his brother at sundown. Fern had taken the chance to do the decorating and organizing with her own brand of quiet excitement.

The corridor the trees had created as a path for her when she had given her life for one of them had been repurposed. A half mile of the corridor had been lit with paper lanterns hung from the trees. The entire floor of the forest was covered in a layer of gardenia petals, a white carpet of flowers covering the green grass for Harper to walk down. She wore a dark silver iridescent dress that draped low between her breasts and across her waist to the floor in a flowing cloud of shimmering color. In the light, as she had moved across the white flower petal carpet, color had danced across the dress accenting her golden brown skin. Silver, gold and midnight blue shone in the cloud that was the train that followed her. _She was a goddess._

Her dark hair was up, twirled in a tight chignon. Trailing curls wisped around cheeks that had gone pink when she came around the corner and met his gaze. She wore the black diamond studs he had given her as a gift for their wedding day. They were a match to the black diamond solitaire engagement ring set in silver he had given her. A band of silver ringed in tiny black diamonds that matched the solitaire would be hers when her promises had been spoken.

Her dark eyes had locked on Elijah and pinned him to where he stood. His breath halted and the pressure of all he felt tried to claw its way out of his chest. He had never seen anything as beautiful as she was. _And she was his._ _His._

He remembered thinking that his gray suit and shirt didn't seem worthy of her, but her eyes had told him differently.

Elijah had memorized the vows he would say to her, but the very sight of Harper in her wedding finery had wiped his mind clean. All of his planning had come to nothing. Instead, all he had been able to say was, "For as long as I've known you, I have been guided by hope. You. You are the life and breath of all I have ever hoped for. And now you will be my guide as we walk together into eternity."

Their friends and family lined the trees under the lanterns standing to witness their vows under the light of the moon shining through the trees. A wonderful surprise had come in the form of his youngest sister Rebekah's arrival, with her forceful blend of joy for him and disdain for everything else, as a guest for their wedding. Klaus had called her and the two of them had set aside their disagreements for the occasion.

Privately Elijah believed that Rebekah might even come to love Harper with time. She had been entirely disarmed by Harper's warmth and generosity. All he could do was watch quietly and smile. Elijah had seen that suspicious glitter in Rebekah's eyes before, and it looked like hope. It was darker now and more pained with centuries of disappointment and betrayal, but all Rebekah yearned for was the same thing they all did….acceptance. And Harper excelled at offering acceptance with her whole heart.

Before it was all said and done, little Harper would conquer his whole family with only a warm, honest and loving heart as her weapon.

He joined her in the warm bath water, making her giggle long and hard in surprise when he stopped only to discard his suit coat, his shoes and his dignity. Wedding clothes and all, wearing proudly the engraved yellow gold band she had given him, he sank into the perfumed water with her. Small hands immediately set to work removing his wet shirt while he sank his face into her damp throat and thanked all the gods past and present for her and this time.

The simple yellow gold band she had placed on his finger at their ceremony was charmed. Some of Fern's finest work, Harper had assured him. A spell infusing time by a dozen witches had been worked into the metal. The spell would litter his days and nights with the scents and sensations of a simpler time, when he had been young and human. It was a reminder of his humanity and all he had lost. It was a simple gift that would give what was most precious back to him in a quietly wonderful way.

The silver for her and the yellow gold for him were ancient symbols he was familiar with because his mother had been a witch too. The silver was for women and symbolized the moon. The yellow gold was for men, symbolizing the sun. Together, they completed the cycle of the day and the night set in bands for eternity.

Harper had even decided rather than to sell the farm that she make a gift of it to Fern. Fern loved the land and had been ecstatic at the gift after a quietly heated argument. At the news, Klaus walked around with a perpetual grin on his face that made Elijah suspicious. He was pretty sure his brother had lost his mind.

Harper eagerly worked his wet clothes off of him while he got lost in the feel of her skin and excited anticipation for the future. Anticipation was a new and wonderful feeling for him. He had kept Harper quietly tucked away and never introduced her to his life. She had stayed in the life she made for herself and he had come and gone from it as often as possible, hoping not to bring harm as he selfishly came and went. She had been human and still always had the potential for a real life. But now she was like him, _and his. _He would take her and they would travel. There was a whole world he was eager to show her, and see through her eyes for the first time. _There was even a little town in Virginia he wanted to show her. A great deal had happened there he would like to share._

He noticed that Harper had gone very still in her efforts to peel the wet clothes from his body. She seemed frozen. Her one arm was wrapped around him, the other had been tugging helpfully while she giggled. But the giggles were gone. He sat back on his knees in the tub and took her small shoulders in his hands.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Her eyes were locked on one of her hands.

She shook it at him. "Look. Don't you see it?" She shook the bubbles off. And he saw. Blue dust sprayed across the top of the water and across the bubbles. Blue dust. From her hand. Her magic….her power signature had been the blue dust. But all of that had been lost when she lost her life.

Her eyes were filled with tears and rolling down her cheeks with her wonder. She held her hand up in the candlelight and he saw it. A blue halo of power hung around her hand.

"I don't understand. Does this mean…?" He shook his head, taking the small hand in his. "How is this possible?"

Through her smiling tears she explained that Fern had hoped something like this might happen. Fern had told Harper that the tree spirit from the tree that she had tried to save had intervened, giving her a last breath after replacing the blood, mixed with Elijah's, into her body again. Fern had said that the spirit's last words had been something like _"Giving it back, giving it all back"._

He wrapped his arms around her while her entire body shook with her tears and her joy. Her dark eyes danced with the blue power he had come to know so well. He knew she had felt she had lost part of herself when the magic was gone. Now she had her magic again and he had her. Together, nothing would stop them.


End file.
